Even though Blue Lake is entering its 43rd season, there has been camping on this site for nearly 100 years. Camp Hardy, founded by Lawrence Hall in Chicago, an orphanage run by the Episcopal Church, began operations in 1910. Several buildings at Blue Lake today, including Hardy Hall, the Chapel, Pool Piano Studio (a former icehouse), and Franke Hall, were all built for Camp Hardy. The former camp was much smaller than present-day Blue Lake and was located on what is now the girls’ side of camp.
While over 5,100 students enroll at Blue Lake every year, our team of ten Scholarship Audition Representatives hears more than five times as many auditions. For example, in 2007, the Representatives heard 28,219 auditions in 442 schools across Michigan.
Blue Lake Public Radio has a library that numbers over 18,000 CDs, plus a similar number of LPs. For twenty-six years, Blue Lake Public Radio has served a twelve county area of West Michigan with classical, jazz, and NPR programming on its two stations, WBLV 90.3 FM and WBLU 88.9 FM.
Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp is actually located on Little Blue Lake. Big Blue Lake is approximately four miles north and is the site of Girl Scout and YMCA camps.
The 1998 Blue Lake camp season was almost canceled due to a windstorm. The storm, in which winds were clocked at over 100 miles per hour, knocked down over 400 trees and destroyed two buildings and damaged others just 12 days before camp was due to start. However, through the herculean efforts of the staff, camp opened on time. The full story on this storm can be found in Fritz Stansell’s book, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp: the Early Years.
