Did you know there used to be a hospital on the hill behind Tom’s West Bay?

Did you further know that this hospital proudly boasted of its Bunsen burner-powered “human bake oven,” which according to advertisements at the time was the perfect way to cure rheumatism, gout, arthritis, ulcers and much more? Patients described how “blood coursed through their veins at racehorse speed” as the heat intensified.

This is just one of hundreds of fascinating tales, anecdotes and historical nuggets – most supported by pictures – gathered by Marty MacLeod for Slabtown: Traverse City’s Premier Neighborhood. It’s MacLeod’s third in an ongoing series of books about Traverse City’s neighborhoods, each the product of around two years of research.

Her informal, conversational style of writing (complete with her own anecdotes about chasing down information) and the fact that her books are collections of individual stories make for works that are far more engaging and digestible than many entries in the history section.

“It’s real storytelling, and I tell it in the most engaging way I know how,” she tells The Ticker.

MacLeod grew up in Traverse City and spent her career as an analysist (among other positions) at the U.S. Department of Defense. As it turns out, she’s somewhat of an accidental author.

Her series began with All About Old Towne: Telling Tales of Traverse City’s Old South Side which itself began when she was elected president of that neighborhood association. She went down a rabbit hole gathering stories of that neighborhood in an attempt to “jazz up” the newsletter.

“One thing led to another, and another, and before I knew it I had 115 pages. What’s the story about Maxbauer's? What’s the story about Old Town Playhouse?” she says. “It would have taken 30 years to put this in the every-other-month newsletter, so I took it to a publisher and said ‘Is this a book?’”

She describes herself as a “hunter-gatherer” of historical stories and nuggets, leaning on both primary sources like newspaper and other historical records along with previously published historical works by well-known authors like Larry Wakefield and Bob Wilson.

“They're all wonderful resources,” she says. “Really it's just a different way of pulling it together and maybe making it more accessible.”

A book can only contain so much information, though. MacLeod regularly rejects historical information without context; she’s only looking for good stories to tell. What makes a good story is still somewhat subjective, though she tries her best.

“If it’s interesting to me, I hope it’s interesting to other people,” she says. “I have three younger sisters, and I always run my first drafts through them as my ‘Is this interesting’ filter. And so far, they haven’t spurned anything.”

She has a knack for finding quirky things, including, for example, the hysteria surrounding a supposed sea serpent spotted on several occasions near the beach at Slabtown in 1907. Several witnesses described it as creature about four feet long with dark brown hair, a flat head and two tusks crawling on the beach and swimming in the bay. 

Her contemporaries in the local history scene are appreciative of her work. Larry Hains, one of the most respected living vessels of local history knowledge, even learned a thing or two from MacLeod’s books.

“Larry said to me ‘Marty, you have things in here I’ve never even heard of,’” she says. “And I said ‘Larry, I live for that.’”

Her next volume, out sometime in 2027, will focus on the neighborhoods east of Boardman Lake. The working title is They Called it Booneville: Intriguing stories of Traverse City's East Side.

“The next one is going to be about the east side, and everyone totally dismisses the east side. There’s total disinterest. I think it’s maybe because it doesn't have the beautiful Victorian houses. It’s all postwar, it’s all industrial,” she says. “I knew there was some good stuff there, but I’m thrilled with what I’ve uncovered so far.”

Her latest edition is available at Horizon Books and Ace Hardware in Slabtown.

Photo: MacLeod and her books. Inset...the human bake oven!