Eventually the Reunion Grounds at Camp Houk closed. It was inevitable, as time marched on, that the veterans of the Union Army would eventually pass on. After the last reunion in 1917, the property changed hands to an unknown owner. Some presumed the Hart Cedar and Lumber Company in the adjacent lots had assumed ownership of property thick with virgin hardwood, and the distinctive landscape of Camp Houk was logged off. It’s not a farfetched assumption, and the rumor became a sort of reality decades later.
The next deed holder for the land was Forestry Associates Inc., who purchased the land in 1964 and thinned out the hardwoods as was necessary. That being said, thinning out the trees was no easy task, as over 30 years of nails and tent spikes were driven into the trees for the purposes of the encampment. As to be expected, many of those trees were either avoided or cut with extreme caution. In 1971, the deed was donated to the Boy Scouts of America’s Timber Trail Council, where it remained for the next 40 years as a Boy Scout camp, one of several in West Michigan.
Following the Boy Scouts, the land was purchased by LeRoy "Don" and Marjorie Peterson after Don was brought in to value the property. The land was of particular interest to the couple not just as the Civil War reunion grounds, but also as reunion grounds for the local Native Americans. The land has been with the Peterson family since the purchase and, just recently, came under the purview of the Oceana County Historical & Genealogical Society (OCH&GS).
And boy, are there plans - so I would like to share some of the hopes for Camp Houk’s future with you. So let’s hold hands around the Camp Houk campfire and imagine it as not a place where Hart High School Marching Band members brave heatstroke in mid-May, but as an educational and recreational destination.
Reaching out to Paul Erickson, current president of the OCH&GS, I got a list of planned developments and activities. For starters - a welcome center, accessible walking paths, restrooms and a picnic area - certainly several notches above a freshly mowed clearing with a stage set up.
And let's not forget my favorite historical site feature, signage. Not only will there be interpretive signs to guide visitors through the story of Camp Houk, trees will be marked and identified, highlighting the crop of still-standing hardwoods. No clue on if the tent spikes are still visible.
For the amenities, they will want electricity installed. What’s neat about this aspect is that Camp Houk briefly had electric lights in 1910 with the help of a gasoline-powered portable generator. According to the OCH&GS booklet “The Story of Camp Houk,” “the project must not have been too impressive, however, since none of the present-day remembrances mention it.”
Imagine stringing up electric lights for Civil War veterans in the middle of the woods in 1910, and none of the kids there remember it 70 years later? They were probably too focused on the ice cream and merry-go-round.
There are also hopes to draw in reenactors to the area, as there once were in the 2000s, and that the grade students of Oceana County can visit their events. Paul even shared that they were shopping around for Civil War rifles and, better yet, a cannon. That owl will never know peace again.
But perhaps more important than cannons is the recognition of Camp Houk’s importance to the Native Americans. Much of the land in Elbridge Township, including Camp Houk, was either given to or purchased by the Ottawa Flat River Band in 1855. Not only that, but it’s been made clear in previous articles that this area was deeply important to the Native Americans, and some believe that Camp Houk was a venerated burial ground hundreds of years ago. Some have also said that the land of Camp Houk was once decorated with Spirit Houses, short, single-gabled “houses” built over gravesites, an aspect of Ojibwe-Christian funerary rites.
Elbridge was still a reservation during the Camp Houk years, and almost every single first-hand account mentions their presence, not just as locals but some as Union veterans themselves. And, of course, the Native Elbridge baseball teams that regularly won games held at camp. That history, alongside the interpretation from local Ottawa members, will be on full display at the future site.
So there you have it. In the future I am expecting to enjoy a family picnic on the first warm day of the summer, subjecting anyone who will listen about my first visit in 2015, the terrible heat and that unbelievably loud cannon.
