The original one-room log schoolhouse on this site opened in 1877 under the direction of Isaac and Lucy Berry, and the multi-racial community of Little River raised the present building in 1905. It served as the local school and community center until 1935. The Berry family landscaped the property around the lake, including the beach, and called it Pleasant View before selling that land to Mecosta County for a park after Lucy Berry's death. Isaac Berry, born into slavery in 1831, escaped from bondage in Missouri to freedom in Canada in 1858, where he married Lucy Millard, a white woman he had met while enslaved in Missouri. The Berrys moved to Morton Township in 1877 with other black and multi-racial families, bought cutover land, and became central figures in the community as Isaac served as postmaster, blacksmith, and school director while Lucy became Little River School's first teacher.