Thomas E. Douglas / The Douglas House

Born and raised in Canada, Thomas E. Douglas came to Saginaw as an adult to work as a bookkeeper in his uncle's lumber mill. After moving to Grayling with his wife, Martha, in 1893, he managed the R. Hanson Lumber Company and, taking advantage of the lumber boom in the Au Sable valley, turned his attention to Lovells. There, around 1898, he built a sawmill, a general store, and a blacksmith shop in the logging town. After fire destroyed the first store, he erected a new one in 1903. As the lumbering era waned, he opened the Douglas House hotel in 1916 and established the North Branch Outing Club, helping transform Lovells into a retreat for sportsmen as tourism grew with the increasing popularity of the automobile. Electricity generated in his mill illuminated the hotel's twenty guest rooms and lavish common spaces, and the hotel became headquarters for the popular sportsmen’s club, drawing members such as Henry and Edsel Ford, John and Horace Dodge, and Charles Nash. Douglas's daughter Margaret ran the hotel until 1971, lived there until 1991, and in 1996 the property reopened as a bed and breakfast that continued to lodge hunting and fishing enthusiasts.

Michigan · United States