Near here stood one of the most famous inns west of Detroit, run by “Yankee Bill” Lewis, a New Yorker who came here in 1836. Located on the main road from Grand Rapids to Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, his establishment was an unimposing collection of log cabins, but his hospitality drew as many as 100 people to stay for a night, and sixty teams of horses could be stabled at a time. Stagecoaches stopped there to rest passengers and change horses. After Lewis’s death in 1853, new roads bypassed Yankee Springs, and the inn soon closed.