photograph
Catalog Number
2020.13.177Description
Black and white photograph showing the Ottawa Beach Hotel.History
Items in accession 2020.13 focus on the history of Macatawa Park (in Park Township, a few miles southwest of Holland, MI) . They are from the collection of Art Tazelaar, gathered over the course of his lifetime. Art was born in Grand Rapids, MI in 1913 to John J. Tazelaar (1868–1957) and Gertrude C Lopperson (1880–1961).The US Census shows that the Tazelaar family had moved to Macatawa Park by 1920. By 1940 (US Census), Art had begun working as the postmaster here, a position he held up to 1980. He also worked at a hardware store in Macatawa Park.
Art married Janet Virginia Wierda on 4-15-1941 in Grand Rapids, MI.
The Ottawa Beach Hotel (originally known as the Hotel Ottawa) was built by the West Michigan Park Association (a group organized in Grand Rapids in 1885) in the summer of 1886 on the north side of the channel, in Park Township, on a bluff. Across the channel, on the south side, was the rival Macatawa Park Hotel.
The Ottawa Beach Hotel burned to the ground on November 6, 1923.