Businessman and farmer Charles M. Criffield and his wife, Cora, built this Queen Anne-style house in 1897, with Fred Corber managing the construction. In 1920 the Criffields sold the house to Ethel and Harry H. Whiteley. Elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in 1914, Harry Whiteley moved his family from the northeastern Lower Peninsula to Dowagiac in 1915 to buy into and manage the Dowagiac Daily News. Harry H. Whiteley used his successful Dowagiac newspaper and his service in the Michigan Senate from 1923 to 1926 and on the Michigan Conservation Commission from 1927 to 1948 to shape Michigan’s public land policy, advocating for Warren Dunes and many other state parks. Sara Ethel Whiteley, a founding member of the Captain Samuel Felt Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, led the chapter’s efforts to honor veterans of World War II with a memorial highway and park.