Inside the Speakeasy at McCourtie Park: Somerset Center, Michigan
It’s beautiful, historical.....and many believe paranormal.
It’s McCourtie Park in Somerset Center, about sixteen miles south of Jackson in Hillsdale County.
It was named after W.H.L. McCourtie, a wealthy oil man who was born in Somerset Center in 1872. He attended the University of Michigan and graduated in 1891. He became interested in a Jackson cement company but moved to Dallas, Texas and became rich in the oil business. With his money, he started up his own cement company, moved back to Somerset Center, bought his family property, and built an event building he dubbed “Aiden Lair”.
This building was built into the side of a hill and was virtually invisible to all who drove by on US-12. McCourtie held many parties for his buddies and gangster acquaintances as well as public events for the community. Henry Ford and yes, Al Capone are said to have been his guests for some all-night poker parties.
This underground area was a speakeasy during the Prohibition years, where bootleggers ran illegal liquor on their way to & from Chicago and Detroit. It had a bar, fireplace, vault, and underground tunnels.
McCourtie’s fascination for cement never waned, and he hired a group of Mexican artists to sculpt seventeen bridges and two birdhouses within his land. The birdhouses were really cool – they had little chambers where the birds could wander around, like rooms and hallways. One of these birdhouses remain.
In 1933, after being confined for six months, McCourtie died in a Battle Creek sanitarium.
The hauntings come mainly from an apparition called “The Lady In Blue” who wanders around the grounds at all times of the night wearing an 1850s long, blue gown. She has been seen floating silently over the concrete bridges and then disappearing. Other times, her footsteps can be heard with the crunching of dead leaves. One night around ten o’clock, I heard that one myself. The noise was roughly three feet in front of me; when I aimed my flashlight in that direction, there was nothing there.
The gallery below includes images inside that old McCourtie speakeasy (thanks to Restless Viking), and you’ll be able to see where he entertained the rich and notorious.
McCourtie Park and Inside the Speakeasy
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