A 142-year-old hotel in South Haven, a longtime leather manufacturing site in Muskegon and one of Michigan’s oldest primarily African American neighborhoods in Niles are among the newest entries to the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan.
The Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC) recently announced that 13 historic Michigan properties are being added to the federal government’s 2025 list of districts, sites, and buildings deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance.
“Each of these places is important for the people and stories they represent, for the challenges faced and overcome, and for the achievements of so many people who built our great state,” said Todd Walsh, National Register coordinator for the State Historic Preservation Office, in a statement. “The 13 new places listed in 2025, and all the others in Michigan, embody what it means to be a Michigander.”
C.W. Marsh Company was founded in 1900 and seven years later moved to its current location on Hudson Street in Muskegon.
Founder Charles Marsh pushed the industry forward by creating carefully crafted leather packings and industrial seals, according to MEDC. Five generations of family leadership later, the business remains in operation and is one of only three companies of its kind in the U.S.
“We still make some of our products the same way we did when Charlie started this company,” CEO Dan Wehrwein said in a statement. “We have made many improvements to our processes over the years, but some of the original methods for making our leather seals are still in use today. I’m very proud of the company and the impact we have had on the community of Muskegon, and I’m ecstatic about this nomination.”
Hotel Nichols in downtown South Haven was established in 1884, according to the hotel’s website, and has been a family-owned business for more than 100 years. When it opened, near the city’s steamship docks and railroad station, it “represented a modern generation of lodging,” according to the MEDC.
Today, it operates as a boutique hotel and has been beautified through the state’s Resilient Lakeshore Heritage Grant Program, which enhanced the building’s masonry exterior and restored its original clay-tile awnings.
The Ferry Street area in Niles is home to Michigan’s oldest African American neighborhoods. Today, the area includes a masonic lodge founded in 1857 and the remains of the Ferry Street School, a one-room schoolhouse built in 1867 to serve Black students. (Most of the school was burnt to the ground in a 2023 fire, but the facade was rescued, according to MEDC.)
Other Michigan locations being inducted into the National Register of Historic Places include:
- Alpena Central Historic District. The area includes the city’s commercial core and several local landmarks, including the nearly 60-year-old Thunder Bay Theatre, which was recently rehabilitated following a devastating fire.
- Charlevoix Central Historic District. According to the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office, this area includes the city’s Memorial drawbridge and the Weathervane Inn and Lodge, designed by Earl Young, the architect known for designing Charlevoix’s “mushroom houses.”
- Dearborn Country Club. A project ordered by Henry Ford in 1923 with an 18-hole championship golf course designed by Donald Ross. The country club is notable for its English Tudor-style clubhouse designed by famed architect Albert Kahn, according to the club’s website.
- St. Mary of Redford Catholic Church complex in Detroit. After the original 1843-built church on Grand River was destroyed by fire, it was rebuilt in 1927 in a grand French Romanesque style. The parish eventually grew to become, at one point in the 1950s, Michigan’s largest, according to Historic Detroit.
- Evart Downtown Historic District. The city’s main commercial hub, primarily along Main Street, includes the historic depot station, according to the city’s website.
- Marian Hall in Flint. The century-old former hotel on the city’s north end is currently undergoing a $1.5 million restoration and transformation into a local housing and commercial space, according to a Mid-Michigan Now report.
- Auburn Hills Historic District in Grand Rapids. The State Historic Preservation Office says this neighborhood is important for its role in the history of housing discrimination and the struggle for civil rights in Grand Rapids, being one of the city’s only known neighborhoods developed by African Americans, a direct response to racist housing policies.
- Bessert-Ryan House, Joshua and Nancy Leland House and German Park Recreation Club, all in Northfield Township. MEDC said the two houses represent early architectural styles in the township while the club, established in 1938 by German and German-American families who settled in the area, remains in business today.
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