Get in the car
History drives
Four self-guided drives through the St. Joseph River valley, stop by stop, with what to see at each one, when it is open, and directions. Every stop is a public place: a museum, a park, a marker, a courthouse, or a building you can see from the road.
- The Freedom RoadIn August 1847 a party of Kentuckians came to the Quaker farms of Young's Prairie to carry nine people back into slavery. Their neighbors stopped them near O'Dell's mill, where…
- The Fruit BeltLake Michigan tempers the weather along a narrow strip of shore, and by the 1840s Berrien County was already shipping peaches across the lake to Chicago. Apples, cherries,…
- The County Seats LoopEvery county in the valley fought over where its courthouse would stand, because the county seat brought the courts, the lawyers, the land office trade and the newspaper.…
- The Makers' RoadFor a century the towns along the St. Joseph River made things the whole country knew by name: Round Oak stoves and Heddon lures at Dowagiac, Kawneer storefronts at Niles,…