The white pest house with a gabled roof, a front door with a window, and a window on the side, surrounded by bushes and trees with autumn foliage. There is a signboard on a post in front of the house with information and black-and-white photographs.

Pestilence House

The Pest House is a quarantine facility typically found in every Michigan community around 1900.

Our Pestilence (Pest) House was built in the 1890s and was rediscovered in 2004 in the form of a long-deserted machine shop. It was moved to Heritage Village and completely restored in 2005. Ours is the only one known to us that survived and has been fully restored.

Pest is short for Pestilence which means contagious, deadly disease. Once introduced to a community, a disease like diphtheria, cholera, and smallpox could spread quickly. Mackinaw City was a destination port city and was very vulnerable since boats from other ports might have a sick person on board who could be spreading the disease. To protect healthy citizens from the person with the disease, they were taken to the Pest House where they were cared for until they were well.

“Care of Patients with Diphtheria” Cheboygan Democrat, 1880
Two black and white horses grazing on a lush green lawn in front of a white house with a gray roof and brick chimney.
A room with wooden walls and floor, containing a mannequin with a white dress and head covering, and a sign about quarantine for smallpox.
A vintage-style room with wooden flooring and walls, featuring two twin beds, a small table, a rocking chair, an antique wood stove with cookware on top, and windows with curtains letting in natural light.
An old, weathered wooden house with peeling paint and warped siding, with a broken window and a front door with a glass panel, situated on grass with trees in the background.
A woman dressed in a white uniform, mask, and hair cap is holding a ceramic swan-shaped basin with a small amount of yellow liquid inside, standing in a doorway of a weathered white wooden building.
White wooden house with a ramp and steps, surrounded by grass and trees, in a sunny day with a blue sky.