By Kevin Howell
Last summer, my favorite navigator Jean and I took to the Mason County Cultural Trails, a series of six trails developed by the county’s Cultural Economic Development Task Force.
Each trail led us through the heritage and history of the area’s maritime and lumber industries, agriculture, barn quilts and sculptures.
“Are we going on the music trail soon?” my navigator asked in early November. “Isn’t it about time to do that?”
“Yep, let’s go tomorrow,” I replied.
Fortunately, it was a sunny day with, gasp, no snow yet.
Stops along the trail include a radio station in Ludington and the Scottville Clown exhibit in White Pine Village, south of Ludington. On this day we headed in another direction on the trail, driving east on U.S. Highway 10 and winding our way through the woods of the Manistee National Forest to neighboring Lake County. At the intersection of M-37, we headed south to the town of Baldwin.
From Baldwin, we picked up U.S. 10 again (at the traffic light) and headed east a few miles to the community of Idlewild. Here, nights once rang with the sounds of top-quality musicians and performers who found a haven in the area’s African American community. This rich and vibrant music culture existed from the 1930s to 1950s, finally withering in the mid to late ’60s.
First stop was the Idlewild Cultural Center, unfortunately closed due to the everlasting pandemic.
Though we couldn’t get a close-up look at the displays inside, we could catch a glimpse of what we were missing through the windows. One set of photos showed the familiar figure, though long gone, of Louis Armstrong.
Jean found an outdoor display with a map of the community and took a photo. My faithful navigator used it to guide us through the winding, often confusing streets and sand tracks leading to two of the most famous nightclubs: the Flamingo Club and the Paradise Club.
We wound our way to the island on Idlewild Lake, where we found the boarded-up building that housed the former Flamingo Club.
While I snapped a few photos of the nightclub’s exterior, Jean wandered across the road to see some construction in progress.
“They’re building a retaining wall at the beach,” she told me.
The beach at Idlewild Lake was, and still is, a popular spot for the community during the summer.
Please allow me to hit the pause button on our trail adventure and take a step forward a few days, to a conversation I had with Bruce Micinski, president of the Lake County Historical Society in Baldwin. I wanted to learn more of Idlewild’s music heritage from him.
“In its peak time,” Micinski told me, “there would be 20,000 people there.”
It was popular for a couple of reasons.
“(Phil) Giles promoted the area for whites and Blacks,” he said. “The community was for African Americans, but whites came for the entertainment.”
Sharing a photo of the Flamingo Club in 1959, he pointed out, “A lot of people were coming here; the whites were at separate tables, but it was integrated.”
Micinski knows what he’s talking about. When I met with him in Baldwin, he showed me a framed news story of a Smithsonian Channel documentary, “The Green Book: Guide to Freedom” in which he participated. The Green Book was a publication listing places to stay and eat that were safe for black Americans in the ’50s and ’60s. Idlewild was one of the entries in the book.
The history of Idlewild can be found, in part at least, on the Music Cultural Trail guide, but talking with Micinski was more enlightening. He really enjoys uncovering history.
“Around 1912 or ’15, developers, the Branch Brothers, saw a market – no one’s selling land to the Black population – and that’s how Idlewild got started,” Micinski told me.
“White realtors started the Idlewild Development Company and went to the cities where the Black population was: Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, especially Chicago.”
They sold 25-foot by 100-foot lots, he explained. The small plots of land weren’t large enough to build a house, so people had to buy two or three.
“Bus tours transported people up here who had never owned anything in their life, and that’s how that started,” he said.
Tourism, automobiles and trains brought artists and intellectuals at first, Micinski said, and later came factory workers and others. Hotels were built to house entertainers and visitors, and the fresh air and outdoors kept them coming.
From clubhouses on the lakes to clubs for dancing and dining, the area grew in the days before the civil rights movement brought about the Civil Rights Act, and property and travel became more available for the black populations.
Micinski also referenced another stop on the Music Trail. He mentioned that Louis Armstrong owned a cabin in Idlewild, but Micinski’s research never found anywhere in that community where he performed. Rather, he might have performed in, say, Ludington – at the Rainbow Garden Pavilion, where the skate park is now located – then returned to Idlewild to stay.
Back on the trail, my navigator and I headed toward Paradise Lake in search of the Paradise Club. We traveled back and forth on Paradise Path but no Paradise Club, abandoned or otherwise.
A well-tended, stone craftsman-style home was on one corner, where we found a brochure. Evidently the home was owned by the Wilson family, who also owned the Paradise Club across the street. No longer there, the club once occupied the vacant property on the lake which can be rented for special events. Oh, well.
With that discovery, it was time to wend our way back through Idlewild to Baldwin. We looked for one more site on the trail: Pleasant Plains Auditorium in downtown Baldwin. The building is still sort of there, but the facade has changed and a bank has taken the place of the auditorium.
According to the trail guide, and echoed by Micinski, it “hosted numerous musical events from its construction in 1929 through the late 1950s. In 1937, the Prairie Farmer WLS Home Talent Show from Chicago showcased local talent, including the young Leonard Keller. Keller went on to form Brown and Keller, a well-known regional orchestra.”
As a reward for our travel – following trails is hard work – we found lunch at The Thai Mango in James Street Plaza, Ludington, just up the street from the former Rainbow Garden.
And that was the last stop on our Music Trail travels and the last stop in our travels along the Mason County Cultural Trails.
You can follow your own version of the cultural trails by checking out: http://masoncountyculture.com/trails/.
Information on Idlewild and the area’s rich music heritage can be found through Bruce Micinski and the Lake County Historical Society Museum. Visits to the museum are currently by appointment only. Call (231) 898-6500, or email lakecountyhistory@hotmail.com. Follow them on Facebook.
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