Bahle’s at 150

For boaters arriving in Suttons Bay, Michigan, on a beautiful summer day, the village waterfront is an inviting place. Recreational boats dot the blue waters of Grand Traverse Bay, and bustling restaurants, galleries and shops line the streets just steps away from the marina.

One of those shops has been welcoming people to Suttons Bay long before anyone arrived aboard a fiberglass cruiser. Bahle’s is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, and its story is intertwined with the history of the village and with the water that sustained this Northern Michigan community for generations.

A connection to the bay

In the mid-19th century, the Leelanau Peninsula was a very different place. Harry C. Sutton, one of the first European settlers in what would become Suttons Bay, arrived in 1854 with a crew of woodsmen who supplied fuel to passing steamboats. He served as the community’s first schoolteacher.

The pioneers of the 1850s gave way to waves of immigrant families in the 1860s, and among them was Lars Bahle, an 18-year-old from Norway. He and his sister Maria reportedly paid $15 apiece for passage across the Atlantic in 1868.

They endured a difficult voyage. Lars later recounted to family members that passengers had to bring and prepare their own food, but in violent seas, the wood stoves tied to the masts kept getting washed out.

Yet the siblings landed safely in Quebec City and traveled to Northport, Michigan. From there, they worked their way 12 miles south to Suttons Bay, where Lars purchased land about a mile from town.

When he sold the land, he built a 24-by-40-foot general store in the heart of the village, opening its doors in 1876. The original store, which also housed the Suttons Bay post office, is now Bahle’s front room.

In those early days, Lake Michigan was the community’s lifeline. Before reliable wagon roads, and long before the railroad reached Suttons Bay, boats carried people, goods, mail and news between isolated communities scattered along the shore. Settlers arriving by water came through the doors of Bahle’s to purchase clothing, hardware, dry goods and anything else they might need.

Aware that his town was an important stop for Great Lakes shipping, Lars decided to jump into the maritime economy himself. In 1882, he established the Bahle dock on the site of today’s Suttons Bay Marina and built the schooner, O.M. Nelson.

“He found a schooner design he liked, but the blueprint was more than he could afford,” says Stacy Sheren, Bahle’s general manager and buyer. “So he designed and built his own version of a common sailing freighter of the time, and he named it for his business partner.”

O.M. Nelson sailed from Suttons Bay to Chicago, hauling produce and bringing back bark for the tanning industry.

An era of expansion

By 1898, Lars needed to add a 20-by-30-foot sales room to the north side of the store to handle clothing and dry goods. Customer traffic increased as rural roads improved, and mail carriers made deliveries by buggy or sleigh.

Then, in 1902-’03, the Manistee and Northeastern Railroad extended service from Traverse City to Northport. Its tracks ran between Bahle’s and the bay, past a 19th-century Bahle warehouse that still stands today.

The Bahle family’s interests grew along with the community. Lars’s son Otto married Lena Sogge in 1919, purchased the store from his father in 1920, and expanded into farming, growing potatoes, peaches and eventually cherries.

“Otto’s grandson, Bob Bahle, always said if it weren’t for peach farming, they wouldn’t have survived the Great Depression,” Sheren says. “Then came cherries, which were huge.”

Otto’s only child, Owen, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He sent letters home instructing his father to purchase more farmland, and when he returned to Michigan, Owen joined the family businesses.

He helped run the store and family farm (a third store expansion dates from this period), invested in local fruit-processing companies and, in 1967, took a leadership role in developing the Suttons Bay Village Marina. He and his wife, Leila, also raised five children — Lois, Robert, Rich, Karl and Chris.

That fourth generation grew up among the orchards and along the shores of Suttons Bay. They still own Bahle’s; Lois and Chris are actively involved, while their siblings focus on other family enterprises.

“As a young girl, maybe 9 or 10, I remember my grandmother Lena would help a man read his mail and help him write his reply,” Lois Bahle says. “I was young and unaware that there were people in our community who did not read or write. My grandmother was kind.”

Preserving history

Walk through Bahle’s today, and you’ll find 150 years of history on proud display. Visitors can see in the walls and floors where later additions joined the original store structure, and historical photos and artifacts are everywhere.

Among them are the builder’s model of O.M. Nelson, the old post office boxes and Bahle’s sign, and an original counter with fixed stools. Preserved receipts paper the dressing-room walls, and family photographs document decades of village and farm life.

One particularly memorable photograph captures three generations together: Lars, his son, Otto, and his grandson, Owen, still a boy. More intimate objects survive as well, including Lars’s wife’s sleeping bonnet and a little girl’s cloak that likely belonged to his sister.

When you step outside, you’ll spot the old railroad grade, the Bahle warehouse and the village marina. Beyond them lies the blue water that shaped this family’s story from the beginning.

For Sheren, preserving that sense of history is part of what makes the store distinctive in an era when shoppers can order nearly anything online.

“Some people don’t know we’re 150 years old, but they come back year after year,” she says. “They love the experience of shopping here and the high-quality brands we carry. One visitor from Los Angeles told us, ‘I save my money to come here. I can shop anywhere, but you have a great selection.’”

The merchandise may bear little resemblance to the hardware, dry goods and work clothes Lars sold more than a century ago, but Bahle’s remains a family business at heart. The siblings themselves are tightly knit; Sheren says they live within 5 to 10 miles of each other.

“Two live next door to each other, another lives in the village about a five-minute walk from the store, and they all still have Thanksgiving together,” she says. “What does that tell you?”

The family’s connection to the bay continues, as well.

“Oh yeah,” Sheren says when asked if the Bahles are boaters. “They lived on the beach, so they grew up on the water.”

Over the generations, the Bahle family has seen schooners disappear, rail service come and go, orchards change, tourism flourish and the Suttons Bay waterfront evolve into a recreational boating destination. Through it all, Bahle’s has remained just steps from the water, welcoming the public.

And not just during the summer. For boaters who want to experience Suttons Bay in the offseason, Sheren recommends returning in February for the village’s annual Yeti Fest. Scheduled for February 13, 2027, the event includes scavenger hunts, face painting, free movies, a chili cook-off and more.

“We’re partial to it at Bahle’s,” Sheren says with a smile. “You’ll find some great sales and fun merchandise, and you’ll see Yeti walking around. If you have a child’s heart, Yeti Fest is amazing.”

To learn more, visit bahles.net and suttonsbaychamber.com.