Pentwater Homecoming 1930 to Present
The beautiful sunset that draws visitors each year to the annual Homecoming festivities.
Every year in August, Pentwater Homecoming brings people back to enjoy the beloved, historic village of their fond summer memories. In 1930, Mrs. A. B. (Annie) Flagg, president of the Pentwater alum association, was mandated to make that year's Homecoming the best. She combined important local events with crowd-pleasing entertainment and set a Homecoming standard that continues over 90 years later.
August 8, 1930, was the exciting grand opening and dedication of the new Community Hall, formerly the Sands & Maxwell general store. In the Homecoming receiving line were six of the seven women of the 1880 (first) Pentwater High School graduating class, celebrating their 50th reunion—Hattie Fincher Ayers, Minnie Stebbins Lockwood, Ida Whittington Fincher, Lou Pringle, Emma Pringle Campbell, and Anna Jensen Gamble. Emma Stoddard was unable to attend.
That August, 42 veterans of the original 111 men who enlisted to fight the Spanish American War in 1898, gathered in Pentwater for their first reunion. They toasted Company A, the 35th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, formed by Captain Herbert Sands, at a banquet at the Verbeck Tavern, today's Village Hall site.
Homecoming visitors found more to love with the new Mears State Park bathhouse erected that summer, just months after demolishing the old structure damaged by winter storms. After closing in 1929, the Pentwater Lake boat livery reopened in 1930 to rent boats and sell provisions for weekend picnic parties, fishing excursions, and lake cruises.
In 1939, Homecoming included aquaplaning and vaudeville on the lake, swimming and speed boat races, Coast Guard and Fire Department drills, Airplane races, fishing prizes, and band concerts on a barge anchored in the lake in front of the grandstands. By 1940, the Macatawa Bay water ski team thrilled the crowd, and they also applauded the batwing parachute jump and horse-pulling contests. The 1941 Pentwater Homecoming drew record crowds.
World War II interrupted the festivities temporarily but the Chamber of Commerce restarted Homecoming in 1946. In 1955, a Centennial Homecoming celebrated the dedication of the new 225-foot marina fronting Pentwater Lake, a joint project with the state waterways commission.
Pentwater Homecoming continues to evolve, and in 2023 features musical events, a strawberry shortcake social, a sand sculpture contest, a grand parade, fireworks, and more. The celebration draws thousands back annually to celebrate the past and make new lakeshore memories.