Tulip City Dispatch

 Honestly, this entry could be a series.  I have at least a full page of notes in my old blog notebook about Tunnel Park.  As I started this blog back in 2019, this particular book kept on coming up in my early research.  The area north of Holland proper was incredibly touristy in the early 20th century, and featured many lakeside resorts and attractions - not the least of which was Tunnel Park (subject of this entry).  Located on 22 acres north of Holland, the park's namesake tunnel actually goes through the dune.  There are stairs and everything, but - why a tunnel? And, what's this got to do with The Farm That Was A Zoo? See, the land that Tunnel Park sits on was donated by Chicago industrialist, George Getz, who owned the aforementioned  Farm That Was A Zoo , to Ottawa County in the 1920s, in an effort to get beachgoers away from his property - he set Tunnel Park up as strictly beach access.  The tunnel?  There's an urban legend that it ...

 Robert Prevost, now known as Pope Leo XIV, has some interesting connections to West Michigan, and specifically, some content that this very blog has covered!  According to Wood TV 8, Pope Leo attended the St. Augustine Seminary in Laketown Township , between Holland and Saugatuck.  Where have we heard that name before?  Oh yeah, it's Felt Mansion !  After inventor Dorr E. Felt passed away, the property was sold to the Archdiocese Of Chicago, where it was converted to a boarding school in 1962, before closing down in 1977 and being sold to the State Of Michigan to become a minimum-security prison complex.