Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Saugatuck, MI

Saugatuck is a small city in Allegan County on Lake Michigan's eastern shore, sitting at the mouth of the Kalamazoo River within Saugatuck Township but governed independently of it.

William C. Butler was the first European-American settler in 1830, and he had a village plat laid out in 1833 for a settlement first called Kalamazoo village and then Newark.

The name Saugatuck — a Native American word signifying a stream outlet — was suggested by the community's first postmaster, and it was adopted when Saugatuck incorporated as a village in 1868.

Saugatuck did not become a city until 1984, more than a century after its village incorporation, when it separated from Saugatuck Township.

Saugatuck began as a lumber town and Lake Michigan port, shipping pine from the Kalamazoo River valley during the nineteenth-century timber boom.

When the timber ran out, Saugatuck reinvented itself as an art colony: with neighboring Douglas it became a noted center of the Arts and Crafts movement, and the Ox-Bow School of Art, affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has drawn artists there since the early 1900s.

From 1909 until it burned on May 6, 1960, Saugatuck's Big Pavilion was one of the most famous dance halls on Lake Michigan, drawing big bands and crowds from across the Midwest.

Saugatuck's Oval Beach on Lake Michigan has a worldwide reputation and was ranked by Condé Nast Traveler among the 25 best shorelines in the world.

The hand-cranked Saugatuck Chain Ferry, departing from Wick's Park, is one of the last chain ferries in the United States; it carries passengers across the Kalamazoo River to the foot of Mount Baldhead, a towering dune with a stairway climb and views over the town and harbor.

North of Saugatuck, the abandoned lumber port of Singapore — once a busy rival settlement — now lies completely buried beneath the shifting dunes.