Walk the docks along Lakeshore Drive this time of year and you'll notice something odd about the SS Milwaukee Clipper. For most of the summer she sits quietly, open for regular tours on weekends, a National Historic Landmark that most Muskegon residents drive past without a second look. Come October, she turns into the busiest fundraiser on the waterfront, with tickets to her Halloween party going up for sale the moment the calendar flips to September.
That's not a coincidence, and it's not really about Halloween. It's about money. The nonprofits that keep Muskegon's oldest landmarks standing don't run on city budgets or ticket revenue spread evenly across twelve months. They run on a handful of concentrated weekends, and October is the biggest one. If you live here and have always treated these events as seasonal decoration, it's worth knowing what they're actually funding.
The Cemetery That Doubles as a Fundraiser
Evergreen Cemetery on Irwin Avenue holds the graves of the men whose names are on half the buildings downtown: lumber baron Charles Hackley, his business partner Thomas Hume, and Captain Jonathan Walker, the abolitionist who was branded "SS" for slave stealer after trying to lead seven enslaved people to freedom in 1844. For one weekend each October, those graves get visitors again, in the form of costumed actors delivering researched biographies of the people buried beneath them.
The event is called City of the Dead, and it's been running for more than 15 years, organized entirely by volunteers from Harbor Unitarian Universalist Congregation. Tickets cost five dollars. The tour has grown from a small local curiosity into a two-day event that draws close to 700 people, according to the congregation's own account of the program. That's not a haunted house built to scare you. It's a history lesson that happens to take place at night, staffed by people who research scripts and sew period costumes for months to keep Muskegon's less-documented residents from being forgotten. The congregation hasn't posted exact 2026 dates as of this writing, so check their site before you plan around it, but the pattern has held for years: the second weekend of October, rain or shine.
The Ship That Pays Its Own Repair Bills
A few miles away at the old Grand Trunk ferry dock, the Milwaukee Clipper tells a similar story with higher stakes. Built in 1904 and rebuilt into an Art Deco passenger liner in 1940, she's the only US passenger steamship still afloat on the Great Lakes, and she nearly didn't survive to become a museum. When the nonprofit SS Milwaukee Clipper Preservation Inc. brought her back to Muskegon in 1997, the ship was in rough shape.
In a FOX 17 report, operations manager Brock Johnson described the ship when volunteers first got her back: "It was in terrible shape, peeling paint, broken window, stolen everything, really."
That restoration is still ongoing, funded largely by events like the ship's Halloween party, this year branded Your Ghost Afloat. Tickets went on sale September 1 at $15 a person, with food and a cash bar included, and the proceeds go directly back into keeping the ship in her homeport rather than back in a scrapyard. In past seasons the Clipper has also run guided haunted tours through October weekends, walking visitors through the pilothouse, staterooms, and the old dance floor by flashlight while sharing stories from more than 120 years of history. Whether that exact format returns depends on the season's calendar, which the preservation group updates as dates firm up, but the Halloween party is confirmed and already booking.
The Mansions That Only Work Half the Year
The Hackley and Hume Historic Site runs on a similar clock, just less dramatically. The two Queen Anne mansions built for Hackley and Hume in the late 1880s are only open for regular guided tours from May through October. After that, the Lakeshore Museum Center, which operates the site, shifts to occasional pre-announced events, most notably holiday tours in November and December.
That seasonal structure means October isn't just the last month of normal operating hours, it's the final stretch before six months of reduced revenue. A few years back the museum center tried something different for the season, offering after-dark flashlight tours where visitors explored the darkened homes learning about the deaths that actually occurred inside both houses, including Charles Hackley's own death in 1905. It was a way to use the same building, the same staff, and the same story to reach people who'd never sign up for a standard architecture tour. Whether that specific format returns this year or not, the underlying math is the same: a historic site with a six-month open season needs its fall weekends to work harder than an attraction that's open year-round.
What's Different Down the Road at the Big Park
Michigan's Adventure, a few miles north, runs on a completely different model, and the contrast is useful. The park's Tricks and Treats Fall Festival is standard seasonal programming for a for-profit amusement park, not a preservation fundraiser. This year that distinction matters a little more than usual: Michigan's Adventure changed hands in early 2026, when Six Flags sold the park along with several other regional properties to EPR Properties in a deal that closed that spring, with day-to-day operations now handled by Enchanted Parks. The park is marking its 70th anniversary this season. Both approaches are legitimate ways to run a fall event. They're just not the same thing: one is a preservation fundraiser; the other is seasonal programming at a for-profit amusement park.
The Rest of the Calendar
Not everything in Muskegon this time of year is tied to a preservation budget. The Lakeside Fall Festival, now in its fourth year, is a business district event organized by Lakeside Merchants and the Lakeside Business Improvement District, built around shopping and drinking your way between neighborhood spots like Marine Tap Room and Wonderland Distilling. It's funded by the merchants who benefit directly from the foot traffic, a different economic logic than a nonprofit selling tickets to keep a roof from leaking.
A few other fall standbys round out the season for anyone just looking for something to do on a Saturday:
- Trunk-or-treat at the Getty 4 Drive-In
- Trick-or-treat at the Muskegon South Pierhead Light
- Fresh cider, baked goods, and harvest produce at the Muskegon Farmers Market, which ranks as Michigan's second-largest outdoor market
None of those carry the same behind-the-scenes funding story as the cemetery tour or the Clipper's Halloween party. They're just good ways to spend a fall weekend, which is reason enough to show up.
Why This Is Worth Knowing If You Live Here
None of this changes what you do on a given Saturday night. But it does change how you might think about where the five or fifteen dollars for a ticket actually goes. A cemetery tour run by volunteers, a ship restoration funded by a Halloween party, and mansion tours that only run half the year aren't background scenery. They're small nonprofits doing the unglamorous work of keeping Muskegon's physical history standing, and October is when most of them make their case to the public at once.
If you've lived in Muskegon a while, you've probably driven past the Clipper a hundred times without stopping. This is the month the people who take care of it are counting on you finally walking up the gangway.
If you're thinking about a move to Muskegon, or you already call it home and want a local perspective on the neighborhoods that make it worth staying, Legacy Home Leaders is happy to talk through what different parts of the lakeshore actually offer beyond the listing photos. Let's Connect.
