Bay Harbor, Michigan

Looking south at Bay Harbor

Sign

Bay Harbor is a residential and resort community that is part of the city of Petoskey in Emmet County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a partially gated, master-planned community.

Bay Harbor is in a sheltered bay on the south shore of Little Traverse Bay on Lake Michigan. It is on U.S. Highway 31, with Petoskey, immediately adjacent to the east along the harbor. It is home to the Inn at Bay Harbor, a Boyne Resorts property.^[1]

In the late 19th century, a limestone quarry was opened on property that is now Bay Harbor. Around 1917, Petoskey Portland Cement incorporated with the purpose of manufacturing cement. For over 80 years, Petoskey Portland and its later holding-company owner, Penn Dixie, provided jobs for hundreds of workers. Mining operations and a massive cement plant operated over 1,200 acres (4.9 km²) and 5 miles (8 km) of Lake Michigan shoreline on Little Traverse Bay. Ceasing operations in the 1980s, the cement plant was abandoned, leaving a brownfield landscape of chromium brick, asbestos, coal and 2.5 million cubic yards of kiln dust.

In 1993, several parties joined together to undertake what would become the largest reclamation in North America. In 1994, simultaneous explosions demolished the cement plant smokestacks. Eight months later, the barrier between Bay Harbor and Little Traverse Bay was removed, and water rushed in at the rate of 1,000,000 US gal/min (63 m³/s). Within 24 hours, over 2.5 billion US gallons (9,500,000 m³) of water formed Bay Harbor Lake.

Bay Harbor's town center, the "Village at Bay Harbor", has boutiques and restaurants where the former cement plant once stood. The Village is the center of the community, featuring such public elements as a marina, public observation platform and walking trails. Nearly one mile of Michigan shoreline and 70 acres (280,000 m²) of prime land were donated as public parks by Bay Harbor Company and are connected by five miles of non-motorized public nature trails.

Bay Harbor has over 1,200 acres (4.9 km²), 25 neighborhoods and 5 miles (8 km) of Lake Michigan waterfront. Three nine-hole golf courses line the shoreline and woodlands and have been rated eighth in the nation by Golf Digest. 90 acres (360,000 m²) of sheltered harborage offers protection for 120 public boat docks and another 128 private "dockominiums". Bay Harbor is a four-season luxury resort community and has a world-class deep water harbor, the Olympic caliber Bay Harbor Equestrian Club, and the 27-hole Bay Harbor Golf Club, designed by Arthur Hills and hailed by Golf Digest as "The Pebble Beach of the Midwest."

References

↑ Inn at Bay Harbor

External links

Municipalities and communities of Emmet County, Michigan, United States

County seat: Petoskey

Cities	Harbor Springs Petoskey

Villages	Alanson Mackinaw City‡ Pellston

Townships	Bear Creek Bliss Carp Lake Center Cross Village Friendship Little Traverse Littlefield Maple River McKinley Pleasantview Readmond Resort Springvale Wawatam West Traverse

CDPs	Bay Shore‡ Bay View Brutus Carp Lake Conway Cross Village Levering Oden Ponshewaing

Other unincorporated communities	Bay Harbor Sturgeon Bay

Footnotes	‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties

Coordinates: 45°21′36″N 85°02′04″W / 45.3599°N 85.0345°W / 45.3599; -85.0345

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, February 10, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.