Lake Orion

Lake Orion started, like a lot of these towns, with a settler and a sawmill — Moses Munson built one in 1825 and planted the first orchard, and energetic Jesse Decker arrived the same year and basically became “everything to everybody,” so the place was first called Decker’s Settlement (and then Canandaigua, after the settlers’ New York hometown). In 1828 a dam united several small lakes into one mile-wide lake, and in 1835 a village attorney rechristened the whole thing “Orion” — after the hunter from Greek mythology. The village incorporated in 1859, and tacked “Lake” onto the front of its name in 1929.

What really shaped Lake Orion was summer. When the railroad arrived in 1872, the lake became a full-blown resort destination — grand hotels, an amusement park out on Park Island, steamer boats, and city folks pouring in from Detroit to escape the heat. The crown jewel was the Bellevue Hotel: three stories, 60 rooms, a dance hall, even a bowling alley. The resort era faded after I-75 turned the village into a commuter community in the 1960s, but the lake-town soul stuck around. Today the historic downtown — tucked just east of M-24, with the lake glittering on the other side — is a genuinely charming strip of shops and restaurants. The town motto might as well be the sign on the welcome banner: “Where living is a vacation.”

Lake Orion’s most out-of-this-world export is Andrew Feustel — a NASA astronaut and Lake Orion High School grad who flew three space missions, including one to service the Hubble Space Telescope, and logged 225 days in space. Add PGA Tour golfer Tom Gillis (another Lake Orion High alum), and this little lake village can claim both the fairway and orbit. Not bad for the Home of the Dragon.