Paw Paw Lake, Michigan
unincorporated community in Michigan
Paw Paw Lake is an unincorporated community in Berrien County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a census-designated place (CDP) for statistical purposes, without legal status as a municipality. The community is located within areas of both Coloma Charter Township and Watervliet Township in the area surrounding Paw Paw Lake and Little Paw Paw Lake, excluding the cities of Watervliet and Coloma. The population of the CDP was 3,323 at the 2020 census.
History
The area which became the CDP was the site of a tourist area in the early 20th century. An 1894 Chicago newspaper article was the catalyst in making the shore a resort area, and a rail line extension from nearby Coloma in 1896 started the building boom. Pavilions, hotels, and cottages soon followed, with nationally known acts performing at the pavilions. Most of these buildings no longer exist.
Deer Forest
The Deer Forest animal park in the CDP opened in 1949 at the end of the heyday of the resort area. By the 1952 season it hosted 200,000 visitors.
The public source identifies “Paw Paw Lake, Michigan” as unincorporated community in Michigan. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lake, Michigan and unincorporated.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Paw Paw Lake, Michigan”, the useful work is to connect “unincorporated community in Michigan” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2092052. VIAF identifies the subject as 137363410. The Library of Congress control number is n95013270. Authority coordinates are 42.212, -86.272. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1894, 1896 and 1949.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Paw Paw Lake, Michigan”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Paw Paw Lake, Michigan primary sources, Paw Paw Lake, Michigan archive and Lake research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Paw Paw Lake, Michigan”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Paw Paw Lake, Michigan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.