50th Anniversary

6/13/2009 Sat 1 of 2 
Bear Lake Marine is celebrating its 50th anniversary so the kids and I trooped down to the Manistee Historical Museum to see what we could discover. We entered the underground bowels and less than two hours later, emerged Museum Members (A great value at only $15 for the family, and as members, we saved $.15 on every copy!) and a little wiser about the marina. All kidding aside, our thanks go out to the museum for their generosity in opening th ...More

6/13/2009 Sat 2 of 2 
1959~1970's Sholtey's Water Spot. Marlin and David Sholtey were the owners from 1959 until the 70's.

The Sea-Horse Boat Festival ad pictured was in the Pioneer Press on May 6, 1960.

The Johnson engine ad pictured was in the Pioneer Press on August 26, 1960.

The Bear Lake Days Program was in the Pioneer Press on August 2, 1960, and features Sholtey's Water Spot charge of Boat Rides 'both days'.

6/14/2009 Sun 10:25 PM 
Within hours of posting our small bit of history found at the museum, I received an email from Stephanie Brown. She introduced herself as the granddaughter of Marlin Sholtey and provided me with her dad's email. I have two emails from David which I have permission to print in their entirety.

Sun 6/14/2009 10:25 PM

Hi,
My name is Stephanie Brown but before I was married it was Stephanie Sholtey. Your marina was started by my grandfa ...More

6/15/2009 Mon 9:47 PM 1 of 3 
Hi Beata,
Let me introduce myself...my name is David Sholtey.
I would like to start off by giving you a short history of the family. We visited Bear Lake for the first time in the summer of 1955, where my father had purchased 2 cottages on the west shore. It was a beautiful summer an we fell in love with Bear Lake. I was only 13 years old at that time and never understood why my parents sold the cottages and moved back to Florida.
We later ...More

6/15/2009 Mon 9:47 PM 2 of 3 
The building that was up town was sold to one of our customers from Grand Rapids, MI and he turned it into a summer business for his wife, called the Bear Lake Trading Post. Let me inject in here that from the time we arrived in Bear Lake up until around the mid 60's...Bear Lake had on the main street and nice hardware store, US Post Office, two grocery stores, a barber shop, a bakery, and nice theater (Cub theater), a Rexal Drug store, a variet ...More

6/15/2009 Mon 9:47 PM 3 of 3 
What did we sell? The marina has a history man naof one of the largest sales in that area...a 42' yacht. Purchased by Bryant Bachman,(a college professor at Purdue University) who had a large home on the north shore, and bought many boats from my father. One of the last boats he purchased was a beautiful OMC IO.

In the late 60's we employed a total of 4 people during the summer to keep up with the business. We had one high school student f ...More

6/18/2009 Thu 10:57 AM 
Hi Beata,

The other night when I was telling you some history, I realized I left out several things.
You should enjoy some of the things I am going to tell you.
First of all I shocked my wife when I asked her if your phone number was still 864-3667. She said it was...that is the original number except for the area code.

I do have some pictures to share with you, I am sorry that one was on a 35 mm slide, it makes it difficult to send them, ...More

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