Photograph of Watervale — Photograph by Devolite Peerless, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Watervale Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

From the record

“The Watervale Historic District is a resort, originally constructed as a lumber camp, located at 975-1422 Watervale Road on the shore of Lower Herring Lake in Blaine Township, Michigan. It was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1991 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.”
Wikipedia article Watervale, Michigan, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 9 National Register listings published here for Benzie County · listed in 2003 · category: District.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

Address. 975-1422 Watervale Rd., Blaine Township, 49613
When was it listed? July 2003
Category. district
Township. Blaine township
National Register reference number. 03000624 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

5 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Watervale Historic District between 2001 and 2020, burning about 11 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2
Debris and open burning	2
Recreation and ceremony	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
13 August 2001	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	not named
4 May 2005	Recreation and ceremony	5.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	BENZIE #002
22 April 2019	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	BENZIE 01 - PUTNEY RD FIRE
18 April 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	FRANKFORT-ELBERTA VFD 0000026 - 2020
4 March 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	ARCADIA TOWNSHIP FIRE/RESCUE 0018012 - 2018

Every fire recorded in Benzie County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Watervale Historic District: 1 past producer, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Fire Clay (Refractory), Silica. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	East Arcadian Clay Pit	Fire Clay (Refractory)	Past Producer
	Walter Rohn Property	Silica	Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Benzie County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
CITY OF MILWAUKEE	5.3 miles	1990
Navigation Structures at Frankfort Harbor	5.5 miles	1997
Frankfort North Breakwater Light	5.6 miles	2005
Frankfort Land Company House	5.7 miles	1995
Gwen Frostic Studio	6.0 miles	2021
Mills Community House	7.3 miles	1972

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 03000624 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Benzie County	All 9 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.