Bay View comprises one of Michigan's most spectacular collections of Victorian era architecture, with Queen Anne style cottages and public buildings marked by sweeping verandas and stately turrets, curving streets planned during the late 1870s to follow natural terraces, and a park-like setting shaped by nineteenth century romantic landscape design. Railroads and steamboats fueled its growth by bringing people from southern Michigan and throughout the Midwest. Influenced by Methodist camps at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Ocean Grove, New Jersey, Bay View was founded in 1875 as a Methodist camp, and founder Samuel O. Knapp built the first cottage in what was then wilderness. By 1900, 420 cottages had been built. Beginning as a religious community, Bay View also fostered scientific and intellectual development, and in 1885 John M. Hall of Flint began its summer educational assembly program, inspired by Chautauqua, New York, to organize schools of art, cooking, elocution and music. Cottagers also took part in religious study, reading circles, dramatic and recreational activities. In 1890 Evelyn Hall was built for the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and speakers who came here included William Jennings Bryan, Bruce Catton, Lillian Hellman, Helen Keller, and Booker T. Washington. Bay View continues to attract cottagers from throughout the United States and is a National Historic Landmark.