THREE OAKS is Harbor Country’s inland outpost, ten minutes on Rt. 12 from the New Buffalo lakeshore. Just under 1700 people live in this 640 acre village, but people from all over southwest Michigan and northeast Indiana are drawn here to enjoy live theater and wander a rare firstgrowth forest.
The village is famed for its patriotism, and in 1899 gained national recognition for raising the thenprincely sum of $1400 toward a memorial commemorating the battleship Maine. In proportion to their population, this was the most generous remembrance of the Maine anywhere in America, and Three Oaks was awarded a cannon bearing Queen Isabella’s monogram for their town park. The village prides itself to this day on throwing what may well be the best Flag Day party anywhere,
Yet it’s hard to imagine a place less mired in the past. Prominently featured on the village website is “Plan 2030aks,” an unequivocally thirdmillenium visioning document prepared with input from all interested stakeholders and covering goals and strategies for managing “transportation, land use, the economy, environment, downtown, parks and cultural stewardship” of the town’s many resources. Despite having had their finances put in the hands of the Feds for a year back in 2008, Three Oaks is blessed with incomparable assets.
Edward K. Warren, the visionary environmental steward who created Warren Dunes State Park, was a Three Oaks guy. In fact, he also created Warren Woods State Park, a 311acre preserve along the banks of the Galien River that is mostly climax forest. If you want to see what got the first European visitors so excited about Harbor Country, there’s no better place than Warren Woods.
THREE OAKS’ BUSINESS DISTRICT is rooted in the arts, and extensive enough that writer Lizzie Duszynski of The Urbaness firmly recommends allowing at least an entire weekend in which to explore its treats. Perhaps the best known is the Acorn Theatre, housed in the onetime Featherbone Corset Factory and alive with a varied menu of educational, musical and theatrical events.
For cinema, Three Oaks residents have the Vickers Theatre, a “classic art house” showing indie productions in a 102yearold building. Chicago magazine has called Vickers “a Mecca for movie lovers,” and if that weren’t enough, they have an art gallery.
Nor is that the town’s only art gallery. Elm Street is graced with Studio B, Gallery H, and the Blue Gallery, all offering fine art, sculpture and design for your viewing or purchasing pleasure. Then there’s the eclectic collection of unique newtoyou home goods and furnishings at reFIND. The Europeanstyle chic of French Twist has earned a write up in The Beach Coast online lifestyle magazine.
If all of this culture makes you hungry, Three Oaks has that covered. The Elm Street Bistro has a mouthwatering selection of breakfasts, soups, salads, and sandwiches, as well as a dinner
menu that blends European cuisine and comfort food. The Viola Cafe, in a freshly restored historic building, has seasonal specialties to eat in or take out and rave reviews from the Chicago Tribune, Time Out Chicago, and the South Bend Tribune, among others. And the fresh homemade edibles at Froelich’s have been enticing locals and tourists alike for twenty years.
Thirsty? Two microbreweries, the Pleasant House Three Oaks (which also offers a fine family restaurant with “pies to die for” as per Bon Apetit magazine) and the Dewey Cannon Winery and Brewery, are also located right there on Elm Street.
There’s more, but we’ll let you find it for yourself. Clearly, Three Oaks has been “discovered” by the cultural mavens; just as clearly, success has not spoiled this country end of Harbor Country.
ESSENTIALS
Three Oaks has a Harding’s grocery store for basic shopping, and the Riverside Corner Store for quick shopping and gourmet treats, and a downtown farmers’ market on Saturdays. The 100 year old Drier’s Meat Market, family owned for three generations, is a National Historic Site and quite famous for its homesmoked meats. There’s a pharmacy/florist’s shop on Elm Street, and a fine public library. Several public parks offer athletic and picnic facilities.
Health care facilities within twenty minutes of Three Oaks include the Franciscan Expresscare urgent care center and Franciscan St Anthony Health in Michigan City, and Indiana University Health LaPorte Hospital in LaPorte. A Meijer and a WalMart are twenty minutes away in Michigan City. The nearest major airport is South Bend International, about fortyfive minutes away.
SOME THREE OAKS HISTORY
Three Oaks had its first settler move in in 1835, and by 1854, when Henry Chamberlain and Robert Ames opened the first store, the villagetobe already had a schoolhouse, a sawmill and a railroad depot. In 1883, Three Oaks native Edward K. Warren developed corsets made from turkey feathers, a huge improvement over whalebone in terms of comfort, price, and durability, and started the Warren Featherbone Factory.
The factory brought even more prosperity to Three Oaks, where farming, logging and commerce had already been thriving. It also brought considerable prosperity to Warren himself, who poured his love of the area into preserving public land via a foundation. The Featherbone Company outlasted the corset, and today has holdings in education and health care.