Originally named Bradford Lake, this community began in 1873 when a lumber company established a business there, and its first post office opened in 1876. In 1885, it was renamed Waters for railroad employee Oscar Waters. Around that time, the Henry Stephens Lumber Company bought the lumber mill from Wright, Wells and Company, and as Stephens expanded the business the town grew. By 1899, Waters had a population of 400, about 100 houses, a one-room school, a Michigan Central Railroad station, and other businesses. The lumber mill closed in 1916, causing the town's rapid decline. Baseball player Ty Cobb, hired by Henry Stephens III to play for his team the Otsegos, helped win the 1914 State Championship. On June 27, 1916, resident Ray H. Muscott received the first U.S. patent for the motor-sleigh, a forerunner of the modern snowmobile. In 1912, Henry Tom Stephens III moved to Waters after inheriting the lumber business and part of the family fortune, and two years later he built on his property at the edge of town a barn measuring 165 feet long, 45 feet wide, and 75 feet high from basement to roof, the largest in Michigan. In 1925, it was converted into a 65-room inn called the Heart Lake Country Club, later renamed Waters Inn, and fire destroyed it in 1972. In 1927, Remi and Edna Schotte bought 1,800 acres around Waters, operated Otsego County's first airport and several businesses, and re-established the post office. North of Waters, Ski Village was operated by Al and Stephanie Almon from 1948 to 1957; Al, a ski jumper on the 1936 Canadian Olympic Team, and Stephanie taught thousands of people to ski, and Al developed Michigan's first ski instructor certification program. In 1914, Stephens also built a bottle fence of empty glass bottles as a tribute to lumberjacks; about 200 feet long and four feet high, it became a popular attraction before deteriorating and being removed in 1970.