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.