Greater West Bloomfield Historical Society - Reproduction
This article is derived from the sales brochure titled "Keep Your Eye On Keego Harbor." It was printed circa 1920 by the real estate developer J. Sawyer. The brochure was used to sell the Keego Harbor Subdivision properties. A reproduction booklet is available form the GWBHS for $3.00.
Keep Your Eye On
Keego Harbor
"One slender fish the Keego."
Longfellow
"From the City's ceaseless bustle
To the wood for peace he flies,
Merrily the leaves there rustle
Merrier still the bird's songs rise"
KEEGO Harbor is one mile from the corporate limits of the City of Pontiac. The Orchard Lake Division of the D. U. R. and the Orchard Lake Gravel Road pass through the property. The franchise of the Gravel Road Company has been surrendered, and the road is now being paved to the City limits.
By the electric road, Keego Harbor is only fifteen minutes ride from the heart of the City and the fare is only five cents, with transfers to the loop line. Morning and evening cars run to and from south City limits on the Detroit and Pontiac line without change. By the Orchard Lake Division of the D. U. R. from the Detroit Interurban waiting room the fare is twenty-five cents, via Grand River Avenue and Farmington.
Every purchaser of a lot at Keego Harbor has rights in common which give access to Cass Lake with its splendid boating, fishing and bathing privileges in summer, and fishing, skating and ice boating in winter.
I converted Dollar Lake into a harbor by constructing a canal, and christened it Keego (Fish) Harbor and after selling several parcels of land of five acres each and less, in June, 1912, I platted all that I had left on the south side of the Gravel Road, giving it the name of Keego Harbor Subdivision. There was then only one house on the Subdivision; now there are more than fifty permanent homes, and a fine school house with two teachers and some sixty scholars. Twenty-five more homes have been built on the property outside the Subdivision.
Those who have purchased lots from me have found ready sale for them at twice and three times the prices I received, and I am still selling lots as cheap as ever.
I sell good lots for only $150.00 and let purchasers make their own terms of payment. I can afford to do this as I bought the property when it was a farm and I sell chiefly to home builders, and every good home adds to the value of the remaining property.
If I sold lots at their full value, and only to speculators, who would not improve them, but hold them for sale at prices much above cost, we would have no village of Keego Harbor. Where all are sellers there are no buyers.
"I would, rather have a lot at Keego Harbor with a neat cottage all my own, with hollyhocks growing at the corners and morning glories climbing over the porch and ride in street cars, than to have the best office in Oakland County and ride in automobiles."
The most distant lots on my subdivision are nearer now than the lots I first sold were when I sold them, because they are near to something now—they are in a nice village with electric cars, electric lights, a standard school, good stores, Sunday School and Church services every Sunday, and everything that goes to make a desirable residence village, with lake privileges on the best lake in Oakland County.
I can afford to sell lots for less than they are worth to the buyers because I have more lots than I need, and I need more money than I have
At Keego Harbor you can keep horses, cows, pigs and chickens. We have no local government. You can spit on the ground if you want to.
It was Thomas Jefferson, who said: "That country is governed best that is governed least."
I am getting quite a reputation as a planter-some one telephoned me to know if he could buy a bushel of my nice big Keego Harbor potatoes- I told him, no—I never cut them.
Although my improvements on the north side of the property are not yet completed, I have commenced to sell lots there—on Cass Lake Road, on Maple Street, and on Willow Beach Avenue facing the bathing beach.
I rent dock privileges, boat house privileges, tent privileges and cottages in the park with gardens.
If you are dependent upon wages for your living, rent is the greatest burden you have to bear. When your wages are cut off by sickness or other cause, you can probably manage to get enough to eat, but how are you to meet the regular calls of your landlord? Own your home and you cannot be turned into the Street, and if you have in connection with that home a good garden, it will supply you with a large part of your living.
I can help you to stop paying rent—I can benefit you and myself by selling you lots for less than they are worth to you, and let you name your own terms of payment—I don't want anyone to buy anything of me unless he will be benefited by doing so—I believe that a transaction that does not benefit both parties is immoral.
If I sold only a few lots, I could not afford to make such easy terms of payment, but I sell hundreds of lots and every hundred lots I sell for even one dollar a week brings me one hundred dollars a week, so I don't have to sell many hundred lots to give me an income on which I can live, for my tastes are simple and I have no automobiles or other luxuries, and don't want them.
There are more than twenty kinds of native trees in the park. The Keego Harbor children are learning all about the different kinds of trees. There are bass wood, iron wood, white wood, dog wood. A little Keego girl when asked how she could tell the dog wood trees, promptly and correctly answered—"By its bark."
The title to my property is perfect, and there are no mortgages or other incumbrances
[sic] and have not been for more than forty years—the last mortgage having been paid and discharged in 1873.
Purchasers can have abstracts as soon as contracts are signed, and before anything has been paid. They don't have to wait until they have made weekly or monthly payments for two or three years before they get an abstract showing them the condition of the title.
There are moderate building restrictions for the protection of the buyers.
If you buy now, you get the benefit of the improvements that I am now making without paying for them. If you wait these improvements may cost you something.
I am a young fellow, but I have been selling land and doing some other things in this community for forty-seven years and I am here to stay.
When you are ready to build I want to insure you against loss by fire as soon as you have anything on the ground that can burn, and I want to insure you against wind storms and everything that may happen to you.
I want all my customers to command me for any service that I may be able to render them, and I will undertake to give them as good service in all respects as anyone else can give.
I live in the park at Keego Harbor during the summer and can be found there, mornings, evenings and Sundays.
