The Melonheads of Saugatuck Dunes are a truly unique bit of local lore and urban legend. While most urban legends have a grain of truth in them, my research into the Melonheads has turned up many dead-ends and false leads.
Here's what we know for sure:
Felt Mansion was built by Dorr E. Felt, a wealthy businessman from Chicago, situated on Shore Acres Farm (present location of Saugatuck Dunes State Park). Within a few days of being completed in 1928, Agnes Felt passed away. Within a year and a half, Dorr Felt himself passed away, in 1930. This is all freely available information from Allegan County. In 1949, the estate was sold by the family to the Archdiocese of Chicago and was used as a seminary, called Saint Augustine Seminary. By 1962, cloistered nuns moved in, and a boarding school was established. This is all verifiable by Archdiocese of Chicago records, and by yearbooks, available at Herrick District Library in Holland. The Seminary was closed and the property was sold to the State of Michigan in 1977, and it was converted to a minimum-security prison called the Dunes Correctional Facility, which closed in 1991. This is verifiable by Michigan Department Of Corrections records, as well as some firsthand testimonies I've gotten over the years by past employees. The property sat vacant until 2002, when a private group began restoring the property (nailhed.com). The Junction Insane Asylum, purported to be the home of the Melonheads, is a myth and has never existed (Godfrey). Hydrocephalus is a very real disorder that causes a swelled skull due to a build-up of fluid in the cavities of the brain (Mayo Clinic).
The urban legends are where things get really fun:
Broadly, the legend is that these Melonheads were housed on site. They were either released, or escaped on their own volition, and formed their own little civilization in the woods. They still live there today.
More specifically, the Melonheads were either imprisoned or treated at Felt Mansion; imprisoned if the Junction Insane Asylum was part of the Dunes Correctional Facility, treated if the Junction Asylum were part of the Augustinian seminary or school. There may or may not have been cruel experiments; that totally depends on which urban legend you believe.
The Melonheads somehow escape. Godfrey's book says that the asylum ran out of funding and had to close, but by that point, the Melonheads were feral and unable to be rehoused in other, more secure facilities, so they were simply released. Other legends hold that they revolted against the evil mad scientists that were experimenting on them, or that they were cut loose either when St. Augustine closed, or when the Dunes Correctional Facility closed.
If they escaped by revolt, some legends hold that they killed the scientists. Other legends hold that they killed and ate the scientists (wwmt.com). Still other legends hold that they escaped through cunning and trickery.
Legends even vary as to the current day whereabouts of the Melonheads. Some say the Melonheads are scared of human interaction, and will hide out in the trees, watching you from afar. They'll scurry if you get too close, or see them. Others say they'll directly interact with you, causing minor chaos or vandalism if you step too close to their house. Still others say they'll kill and/or eat you (there's a bizarre amount of tendrils in this urban legend that lead to cannibalism).
Upon abandonment of the Dunes Correctional Facility in the 90's, the Melonheads were purported to have taken up residency in the buildings around the property. But, if we take it that they were being rehabbed at St. Augustine, they dug a network of tunnels underneath the property when they escaped. The tunnels either exist completely within the bounds of Saugatuck Dunes State Park, or they go miles north, ending as far away as Ottawa County and the City of Holland. This is where they'll eat you, if you're caught and killed by the malicious version of Melonheads.
What I've found interesting, as mentioned in the opening paragraph, is how little concrete information there is about the Melonheads. The urban legends seem to start in the mid- to late-1960's, and seem centered around Holland High School. So, that seems to lend a bit of credence to the idea that the Catholic school kids were smart, so in true 1960's bullying form, they got the nicknames of "eggheads," that then evolved into "melonheads." Maybe I wasn't looking at the right sources, but I couldn't find a lot linking Melonheads to Saugatuck urban legends; it seems like a purely Holland thing.
I'd love to learn more! If you have any corrections or questions, please email me!
Works cited:
Godfrey, L. S., Sceurman, M., & Moran, M. (2006). Weird Michigan: your travel guide to Michigans local legends and best kept secrets. New York: Sterling Publishing.
Greener on the Other Side Of the Fence https://www.nailhed.com/2014/12/greener-on-other-side-of-fence.html
Hydrocephalus https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hydrocephalus/symptoms-causes/syc-20373604
Michigan Monsters: Beware the Melon Heads Of Saugatuck
Aaron Dimick - https://wwmt.com/news/local/michigan-monsters-beware-the-melon-heads-of-saugatuck
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