Club Manitou of Harbor Springs
Club Manitou was an infamous mid-west summer resort nightclub-casino located in Harbor Springs in northern Michigan, United States that existed from 1929 until 1952.
It was a speakeasy run by The Purple Gang during Prohibition and the Great Depression years featuring a hidden basement of gambling and alcohol for wealthy Midwestern summer resort goers.
The 1930s era of northwest lower Michigan was particularly a time of gala summer resort tourism despite the United States being in the throes of a deepening Great Depression.
Besides Mackinac Island, the top summer resort town in the area, known as the "Tip of the Mitt," was Harbor Springs, a small village located on Little Traverse Bay.
The passenger cruise steamer was the source of Harbor Springs, Michigan's famous Club Manitou, which opened July 4 week-end in 1929.
The club was built with Abe Bernstein's Purple Gang profits and managed by his onetime driver and bodyguard, William "Slim" Al Gerhart.
[4] The Club Manitou, from late June 1929, until Labor Day of 1953, was the northland's finest summer spot for dance-gaming-drinking and nightly musical entertainment.
The all-male professional wait staff and chefs were brought to northern Michigan from Club Vatel, New York City.
The Manitou was strictly for the summer wealthy resorters, and by keeping entrance to the club restricted, the police authorities of the area stayed on the sidelines.
[6] The only competition that faced the Purple Gang's manager William Gerhart's (aka "Detroit Slim") for the summer wealthy's attention and money was the Ramona Park Hotel Casino.
Gerhart tore down the building and used the lumber to help renovate his newly purchased Harbor Springs bar that was located on the waterfront.
The new addition, built to the west of the original 1928 log cabin structure, opened in time for the July 4 – Labor Day summer season of 1946.
Its official name was the “Club Ponytail Teen & Collegiate Nite Club.” The house drink was Green River Soda and "Poni's Pizza" was the favorite food offering of the establishment.
The large influx of mid-western vacationers to the Petoskey-Harbor Springs area of northern Michigan allowed the booking of major national rock and roll acts.
The Douglas family wanted to provide summer resorter and local parents, with a wholesome, safe chaperoned environment for the night time gatherings of their teenagers.
In order to draw in the teen crowd, Stan Douglas knew he needed the top names in entertainment for that age group.
[8] Northern Michigan's "Tip of the Mitt" area tripled in its size every July and August due to the influx of mid-west city dwellers.
Using the Detroit Federation of Musicians as their main booking agent (also used by Detroit's famous Roostertail nightclub), Stan and Jean Douglas were able to bring such popular acts to the Ponytail as the Beach Boys (August 1963), the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Bobby Vinton, Del Shannon, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Bob Seger, Bobby Vee, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, the Kingsmen ("Louie Louie"), Freddie Cannon, Dee Dee Sharp, the Four Tops, and Roy Orbison.
In the summer of 1965, Club Ponytail's house band that year was an Ann Arbor group called The Iguanas, featuring Jim Osterberg, who later became known as Iggy Pop.
Local firemen theorized that fumes from a gas furnace caused an explosion and the building was immediately engulfed in flame.
The Club Ponytail's demise was soon followed by the opening of (in the nearby summer resort town of Charlevoix, Michigan) Castle Farms “Rock n’ Roll Central” in 1976.
