Arcadia's Early Neighbors

Watervale

is about four miles north of Arcadia. In 1890, Leo F. Hale bought the land south of Lower Herring Lake where he started a lumber camp originally called Hale's Pier. He built the original buildings incorporated as Watervale and transformed later from a ghost town into a resort.

Burnham

was Arcadia's closest neighbor to the north. Its story started in 1882, when the Burnham Wood & Piering Company built a pier into Lake Michigan and a sawmill for its lumbering operation. Like many other lumbering towns, Burnham didn't last long after the wood was gone. Many of the buildings in Burnham were moved to Arcadia.

Malcolm

was the station at the east end of the Starke Land and Lumber Company's narrow gauge logging railroad. Construction of the railway began in 1881. In 1893, when the railroad was converted to standard gauge, rerouted, and extended to Henry and Copemish, Malcolm continued to be a key stop along the new Arcadia and Betsey River Railway. Malcolm provided pickles, potatoes, livestock, and other locally produced goods. Malcolm had a livestock and produce station, a school, a store, post office, sawmill, homes, and farms.

Pierport

started in 1866 as Turnersport, when the Turnersport Pier Company built a pier there to ship wood products. Renamed Pierport in 1871, it developed into a thriving settlement with general stores, a school, a post office, hotels, a sawmill, a stave factory, two piers, a railway connection to Bear Lake, homes, and farms.