Attractions

Curious Kids Museum

415 Lake Blvd.

(616) 983-2543

Hands-on exhibits that encourage curiosity and learning.  Each exhibit comes with its own costumes for children to wear.  Children can serve customers in their own diner, pick apples from simulated trees, follow the crop through processing and then sell apple-related products at a market stand.  Type their names in Braille, listen for a teddy bear's heartbeat and more.

 

Krasl Art Center

Lake Blvd. & Park

(616) 983-0271

There are three galleries displaying folk art, traditional art and works by regional artists as well as traveling exhibitions from major museums such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Local History

While waiting here for Tonty to join him in 1679, LaSalle built Fort Miami (it was in Miami Indian territory), to keep his restless men occupied.  when he moved southward after a month, he left no one here, for he did not intend to (and never did) return.

About 1780, William Burnett built a trading post here.  In 1827, it was a settlement called Saranac, after a Great Lakes ship.

Calvin Britain settled here in 1829, and in 1831 platted the village as Newburyport, some say after the first vessel to ascend the St. Joseph River, others say after Newburyport, Massachusetts, where some of the early settlers had come.  Mr. Britain became the first postmaster of Saranac in March 1829 with the name changed to St. Joseph on July 24, 1832.  In 1833, the legislature changed the name of the village to St. Joseph (it is on the St. Joseph River, named by the French missionaries).  

Incorporated as a village in 1834 and as a city in 1891.

Informational excerpts from Michigan Place Names, by Walter Romig, L.H.D.

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