Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Three Oaks, MI

Three Oaks is a village in Berrien County in Michigan's southwest corner, about 5 miles from Lake Michigan and within 2 miles of the Indiana state line along US 12.

The village was first settled by Henry Chamberlain in 1850 and incorporated in 1867; it was originally called Chamberlain's Siding.

Three Oaks took its name from three oak trees that served as a landmark and guidepoint for train engineers; none of the original three oaks survives today, the last having been cut down in the early 20th century.

Three Oaks had 1,370 residents at the 2020 census, down from a peak of 1,829 in 2000; the 2010 census counted 678 households in the village.

The village's June Flag Day celebration and parade are billed as the largest Flag Day parade in the nation.

Three Oaks is home to Dewey Cannon Park, where a cannon captured by Admiral Dewey in the Spanish-American War was presented in 1900 after village citizens raised $1,400 for a memorial to the battleship Maine — the largest per-capita contribution of any community in the nation — and the park was dedicated by President William McKinley in 1899.

The old Warren Featherbone factory, built by Edward Kirk Warren, whose company replaced whalebone in corsets with stiffeners made from turkey feathers, still stands and now houses the Journeyman Distillery and the Acorn Theater.

The Apple Cider Century bicycle ride, started by the Three Oaks Spokes Bicycle Club in 1974 and held on the last Sunday of September, draws more than 6,000 riders annually for routes of up to 100 miles.

The 1989 Christmas movie Prancer was filmed largely on location in Three Oaks, and the village was also the fictional setting of the radio and television soap opera Young Doctor Malone from 1939 to 1960.

In 2008 a fiscal crisis left the village with a deficit of about $600,000, and the State of Michigan appointed an emergency financial manager to run its finances for about a year.