Fruitport once bet on a mineral-spring hotel

Fruitport laid the foundation for a large hotel in 1869. Two years later, after mineral water was found nearby, the Pomona House opened on July 1, 1871. The Fruitport Magnetic and Sulphur Springs Company backed the project with a reported $500,000 in capital, an ambitious resort bet for a young village.

Fruitport was not alone in chasing this idea. Central Michigan University’s history of the state’s water resorts says mineral wells appeared in towns across Michigan. Resorts promoted the water as medicine, and visitors came to “take the cure” long before modern medicine could test those claims properly.

The hotel did not simply burn once and vanish. Fruitport Township’s historical account says it burned twice and ended as a ruin. The exact fire years are not given there, but the larger arc is plain: for a while, a village at the head of Spring Lake tried to turn mineral water into a resort business.