St. Joseph's Silver Beach

If you spend a summer day in St. Joseph, you’ll probably end up at Silver Beach — and you’ll be following a tradition more than a century old. From 1891 until 1971, this stretch of sand at the mouth of the St. Joseph River was home to the Silver Beach Amusement Park, one of the Midwest’s great lakeside playgrounds. Families rode the wooden roller coaster, danced to big bands at the Shadowland Ballroom, and crowded the beach; people even arrived by steamship from Chicago.

The rides are long gone, but the beach never stopped drawing people. Today it’s a Berrien County park with a wide Lake Michigan swimming beach, and the old amusement park lives on through the Silver Beach Carousel, which opened in 2010 with exhibits about the original park. Nearby you’ll find the free Whirlpool Compass Fountain (a favorite splash spot for kids) and a rebuilt Shadowland Ballroom used for weddings.

Out on the North Pier stand St. Joseph’s two lighthouses — a black-and-white outer light and a red-and-white inner light, both more than a hundred years old and still lit. You can reach them from Tiscornia Park and, on a calm day, walk the pier right up to them. In winter, waves coat the whole pier in dramatic ice.

Silver Beach County Park and the Silver Beach Carousel, St. Joseph · silverbeachcarousel.com