Wayside Sign – The Orchard Lake Museum and the Treasures of Local History

The Orchard Lake Museum has been an intersection where paths cross and people meet. The first building here was a small tavern named the Orchard Lake House, built in 1857 for stagecoach travelers. Various owners rebuilt and enlarged the site, later named the Orchard Lake Hotel, to entertain the growing resort community on the lakes, especially city folks arriving on nearby trolley cars in the early 1900s. In 1939 the building was mostly torn down and replaced by the smaller Orchard Lake Village Hall, now occupied by the museum and the Greater West Bloomfield Historical Society.