White Pine Village: Walk Through History South of Ludington, Michigan
White Pine Village, designed for self-guided touring, is dedicated to preserving the history of the Mason County area from around 1850 to the present. The village has been in operation since July 2, 1976. The Village contains 25 buildings on 23 acres of land. Each building houses artifacts that arranged so that there are no protective barriers around them. This enables the tourists to examine the artifacts up close.
Some of the buildings scattered through out the village are an old-fashioned ice cream parlor, trappers cabin, town hall, hardware store, doctor’s office, a one-room schoolhouse and a chapel.
The village also includes several unique museums as well. The maritime museum displays artifacts that include a lighthouse lens, uniforms and paintings. The lumbering museum is a lumber camp style building and houses a collection of tools used during the lumber camp days. The Rose Hawley museum has beautiful antique furniture on display. The Time museum houses a huge collection of working clocks collected through out the years. Finally, the music museum houses a large collection of musical instruments.
The staff of White Pine Village is very small. Ron Wood, the Director of the Mason County Historical Society and Historic White Pine Village has been working there since September 1991. Wood is the only full-time employee. However, he has one other person who works there year round that is almost full time. Several part-time employers work at the village. In the summer months, the part time employees work in the ice-cream parlor, admissions and maintain the grounds.
Wood is very fortunate to have over 400 volunteers who come to the village year round to help keep the business in operation. Wood’s face lights up when he speaks of the volunteers. “We could not continue to operate as we do without that labor force of 400 volunteers. They do a wide variety of activities. They work right here in the research library helping do research, filing, data entry. They do interpretation of the buildings, security, maintenance, and construction of buildings.”
Wood likes to greet the customers as they come into the gift shop. He is enthusiastic about his job and wears a smile on his face. He points out several key buildings that he thinks the visitors should visit. If customers have questions about anything, he is always willing to answer it. He is just as enthusiastic when the customers are leaving. He asks if they have enjoyed their stay and hopes they will come back again. He feels visitor’s comments are an important tool in keeping the village moving in the right direction.
In 1990, the village lost all of its local tax support and almost shut down. Now, the village is funded entirely on artifacts donated by generous individuals, support of the members of the Ludington Historical Society, village admissions and by a small portion of revenue gathered from the sales of gifts and ice cream at the ice cream parlor.
“We have basically taken the village from the time it was shut down right after its loss of all local tax support to an operation that is thriving, financially sound and a steady increase in attendance,” said Wood.
Each year Historic White Pine Village attracts about 18,000 visitors. Wood thinks that the number of visitors this year will be up from previous years. Historic White Pine Village prints an average of about 15,000-18,000 brochures a year all up and down the shores of Michigan. The village does not do a lot of advertising but list themselves in key local advertisements to get the people from the downtown area out to the village itself.
The main reason for the increase in tourists is because of White Pine Village’s website: www.historicwhitepinevillage.org. According to an enthusiastic Wood about the website: “The website that we have is really very nice and is very detailed. People are now beginning to use websites to find destinations to visit. Obviously people like our selves are using websites as a marketing tool. We get tremendous acknowledgement that people looked us up on the web.”
Public schools in the area use White Pine Village as an educational resource. This includes the local schools in the area such as Ludington, Hart, Shelby and Scottville. Schools even come from Grand Rapids, Muskegon, Cadillac, Whitehall, Holland and Traverse City. By the end of this year, well over 4,500 school students would have toured White Pine Village.
The village puts on several events for the schools. The one-room schoolhouse experience allows an entire classroom, dressed in pioneer clothing to experience what school would have been like more than a century ago.
Another event that the village puts on is the History in Action Days. This is when the tours are done specially for schools. Many of the volunteers interpret the buildings on these days to explain the local history of the area to the students.
Activities at the village at not limited to the schools however. White Pine puts on nine special events throughout the year. These events include pancake supper, children’s day, fish fry, pioneer logging days, corn roast, autumn festival and a day called Christmas in the Village.
Another interesting activity is the White Pine Muster, which reenacts various parts of military history. Says Wood “We go from revolutionary war, pre 1840 to Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, [and] Vietnam.”
All twenty-five buildings scattered around the village are used for special events every year. The old-fashioned chapel is rented out for about thirty weddings a year. What makes the chapel neat is that the village provides the marrying couple with the setting for their wedding, while the couple does everything else.
White Pine Village is the host for the Ludington Mariners Old Time Base Ball Team. They were established in 1993 and just finished its tenth year of existence in the Vintage baseball league. The team takes its name from a former minor league team that played in Ludington in the early 1900s (1912-26). The Mariners took part in the World Series of Vintage Baseball, which was held in Greenfield Village in Detroit. The Mariners were one of the 16 teams to take part in the event.
Wood has an interesting story to tell about the Mariners and White Pine Village. “Last winter I received a call from The American Profile They called us, they found us on the web. On June 28, they were here and did interviews. They hired a local photographer and did the interviews. On September 21 we were featured on the front cover and an article inside.”
The American Profile goes to over 4 million readers though out the country. Wood thinks that is tremendous attention for White Pine Village and the folks of western Michigan.
Recently Wood did an interview with a radio station from New Mexico that has 200,000 listeners. “We talked about White Pine Village and old time baseball,” said Wood cheerfully.
Jane Budzinski, who has been an employee at White Pine Village since 1992, coordinates the special events that take place at the village. She also works in the gift shop and orders items. She also does any other job that might need attending to.
“I enjoy visiting with the folks that come from all over the country and the world who come to see our village. Many people are here from Germany, England and Asia. It is fun to speak with them and explain our local history. And I enjoy visiting with people who come from the next county over,” says Budzinski.
Budzinski believes that White Pine Village is an important service because they are perverting the county’s past for future generations.
Melissa Fround, a second-grade teacher from Whitehall, Michigan, brought her family to see the sights and sounds of the village only a day after brining her class. She enjoyed everything she looked at, especially the courthouse with its old-fashioned jail and jury chairs.
Says Fround about the village: “I’d recommend that friends come here, especially with the price. It (the village) is so unique. And the price is so reasonable.”
White Pine Village has a number of new buildings being planned for the future. (Help with this part, please!)
Wood recommends that people how have any interest in history at all come and visit White Pine Village. “We are a typical village that shows the history from the time lumbering began brining white people to western Michigan. I think we do a good job at showing that history. They can reminisce and feel the nostalgia of the early period of time.”
The staff of White Pine Village hopes that people will make the trip to come and visit them for a memorable experience that everyone can enjoy.
