This Michigan art town is small enough to walk in minutes and famous enough to shock you

It’s a 900-person town with global fame

Saugatuck sits where the Kalamazoo River empties into Lake Michigan, and about 900 people call it home year-round. Conde Nast Traveler put its Oval Beach on its list of the top 25 beaches in the world.

National Geographic Traveler ranked it among the best freshwater beaches in the country. USA Today named the whole town one of America’s best small coastal towns.

For a place you can walk end to end in minutes, Saugatuck punches way above its weight, and the sand is only the beginning.

Lumber money built it, Chicago artists saved it

William Butler showed up in 1830 and laid out a village right at the mouth of the Kalamazoo River.

Saugatuck grew fast on lumber and shipping through the mid-1800s, but when the timber ran out, the town needed a second act.

Artists drawn to the coastline and the light along Lake Michigan started arriving in the late 1800s.

By 1910, a group from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago founded the Ox-Bow School of Art on 115 acres along the river.

Ox-Bow still runs year-round programs in painting, ceramics, glassblowing, printmaking and sculpture today.

A whole town lies buried under the dunes

Just north of Saugatuck, beneath the sand dunes near the Kalamazoo River’s mouth, sits Singapore.

New York land speculators founded it in 1836, and at its peak it had three mills, two hotels and several general stores. Then the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 changed everything.

The surrounding forests got stripped bare to supply rebuilding lumber, and without trees to anchor the dunes, Lake Michigan winds pushed sand right over the abandoned town.

A historical marker on Butler Street in downtown Saugatuck tells the whole story.

Ride the last hand-cranked ferry in America

The Saugatuck Chain Ferry, named Diane, has carried passengers across the Kalamazoo River since 1857. No motor, no engine.

The crew cranks it by hand along a chain that runs beneath the river.

The crossing covers about 100 yards and takes roughly five minutes, connecting downtown Saugatuck at Wicks Park to Mount Baldhead Park and the trails to Oval Beach. It originally replaced a bridge that flooding knocked out.

The ferry runs seasonally from Memorial Day through Labor Day, and it is the last hand-cranked chain ferry still operating in the country.

303 wooden steps up a 250-foot sand dune

Mount Baldhead rises 250 feet directly across the Kalamazoo River from downtown.

A wooden staircase of 303 steps takes you from the river valley to an observation deck at the top, where you can see the Kalamazoo River valley, downtown Saugatuck and the sister city of Douglas spread out below.

A Cold War-era radar dome sits at the summit, believed to be the last remaining SAGE system gap-filler radar in public hands. Trails from the top wind down through wooded dunes to Oval Beach on the Lake Michigan side.

West-facing sand and sunsets over open water

Oval Beach sits at the end of Perryman Street, a short drive or walk from downtown. A wide crescent of soft sand backs up against rolling, grass-covered dunes.

You can get there by car, by the chain ferry and walking trail, or on the local Interurban transit bus. The beach stays open year-round, with services running from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

Saugatuck’s shoreline faces west, so you get unobstructed views of the sun dropping straight below the water every evening.

Globally rare wetlands sit right next to the beach

The Saugatuck Harbor Natural Area covers 173 acres right next to Oval Beach, and its interdunal wetlands carry a classification of globally imperiled because so few of them still exist.

Trails wind through rolling dunes, past the remnants of the historic Fishtown pier, along the Kalamazoo River channel and out to Lake Michigan.

You might spot a prairie warbler or a Blanchard’s cricket frog here.

The Land Conservancy of West Michigan partnered with the city to protect the land permanently and opened it as a city park in 2011.

No boardwalks, no buildings on 2.5 miles of shoreline

A few miles north of town, Saugatuck Dunes State Park protects 2.5 miles of undeveloped Lake Michigan coast. The park has 13 miles of trails cutting through coastal dunes, pine forests and hardwood stands.

If you want the quickest route to the water, take the Beach Trail, a three-quarter-mile one-way path through the woods.

The 300-acre Patty Birkholz Natural Area inside the park preserves a coastal dune system and three endangered plant species. It is a quieter stretch of sand than Oval Beach, with nothing built on it.

WWII-era dune buggies still run these sands

Saugatuck Dune Rides has been running guided tours across privately owned sand dunes since 1954. Ron Jousma started it all by modifying a World War II-era Ford convertible into the first dune buggy.

Now 18-passenger open-air vehicles take you over dunes that rise up to 200 feet, with Lake Michigan in the distance. Each 40-minute tour mixes the thrills with local history, including the story of buried Singapore.

Only two dune rides operate in the entire state of Michigan, and this is one of them.

Over 30 galleries line a few walkable blocks

Butler Street is the main drag, packed with art galleries, independent shops and locally owned restaurants.

The Saugatuck and Douglas area has more than 30 galleries showing painting, sculpture, glass, ceramics, jewelry and mixed media. Every July, the Waterfront Invitational Fine Art Fair brings 60 artists to Village Square.

Many gallery owners and working artists live here year-round, so the creative scene keeps going well past summer. The town’s art roots run back more than a century to those first Chicago artists who arrived around 1900.

Catch a paddlewheel sunset cruise from Wicks Park

Wicks Park sits along the Kalamazoo River in downtown Saugatuck, with a gazebo and views of the harbor.

The chain ferry leaves from the dock here, so it is a natural starting point for crossing to the other side of the river.

The Star of Saugatuck, a double-decker paddlewheel boat, runs narrated cruises along the Kalamazoo and out onto Lake Michigan. Sunset cruises put you on the water as the sun drops over the lake.

The park ties the walkable downtown to the waterfront and the town’s main attractions.

A barrel-shaped root beer stand survived 40 years of neglect

Douglas sits one mile south of Saugatuck, easy to reach on foot or by car. The pace slows down a little here, with its own collection of galleries, shops and restaurants.

The Douglas Root Beer Barrel, a barrel-shaped concession stand, has been a local landmark since 1952.

It closed in 1978 and sat unused for decades until the Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society restored and reopened it in 2018.

Together, these twin towns share a waterfront, an arts culture and a stretch of Lake Michigan coast.

Visit Oval Beach in Saugatuck, Michigan

You can find Oval Beach at Perryman Street and Oval Beach Drive in Saugatuck, Michigan 49453. The beach stays open year-round, with parking and services available from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

You can drive in, take the chain ferry and walk the trail over, or hop on the local Interurban transit bus. The Saugatuck Harbor Natural Area trailhead starts at the north end of the parking lot.

Dogs are not allowed on the beach or in the concession area. Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids is about 50 minutes away by car.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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