Allegan County Historical Society Old Jail Museum

04/27/2026

We loved hosting the students from Allegan Online & Adult Education for a recent field trip at the Old Jail Museum! 🗝️

Exploring local history is always more meaningful when it’s shared, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to welcome groups like theirs through our doors.

If you’re part of a school, club, or community group interested in scheduling a visit outside of regular museum hours, we’d love to hear from you. Contact the museum to plan your tour!

On Friday, our K-8 students took a field trip to the Allegan County Historical Society Old Jail Museum. Thank you for hosting us - the students learned a lot and had a great time!

03/25/2026

Join board member Mark Lovett for a presentation on the early history of The City of Allegan on Thursday, March 26 at 6pm at the Allegan District Library!

03/07/2026

Can you name these early American implements? Answers are in the comments ⚒️

The Old Jail Museum is open on Saturdays from 10am-4pm 🗝️ Admission is always free!

12/26/2025

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Allegan County Historical Society! 🎄

Visit the Old Jail Museum in its holiday splendor during special expanded hours. And procrastinators, you’re in luck: the gift shop is still stocked with great finds!

The museum will be open Friday, December 26 & Saturday, December 27, and again Friday, January 2 & Saturday, January 3, all from 10am–4pm.

Admission is always free 🗝️

12/19/2025

Does this ring a bell? 🔔

We’ve come into a large collection of antique bells each with its own size, sound, and history now available in the Old Jail Museum gift shop! More available than pictured.

Stop in every Saturday from 10am–4pm, plus bonus holiday hours on Friday, December 26 from 10am–4pm.

Admission is always free 🗝️

11/29/2025

Visit Santa Claus for FREE at the Old Jail Museum until 1pm during Small Business Saturday 🎅🎄 We’ve got special snacks for the first visitors!

The museum gift shop is a perfect place to find a thoughtful Christmas gift.

11/26/2025

The Old Jail Museum gift shop has all kinds of unique finds for the history lover in your life including our original Allegan ornaments! 🎄

Bring the family this Saturday for a special visit with Santa Claus from 11am–1pm 🎅 Admission is always free.

The museum and gift shop are open every Saturday from 10am–4pm, plus special holiday hours on Friday, November 28 and Friday, December 26, also from 10am–4pm. Come explore, shop local, and celebrate the season with us! ✨

10/31/2025

Happy Halloween from the Allegan County Historical Society Old Jail Museum! 👻

The museum was decorated in Halloween spirit for the month of October after participating in Downtown Allegan’s Halloween Hoot-n-Howl event on October 3 with an Early 20th Century Halloween Party.

Adults and children enjoyed activities like bobbing for apples, pin-the-tail on the cat, and more. Thank you to all of our volunteers who made this event a success!

The Old Jail Museum is open on Saturdays from 10am-4pm 🏛️ Admission is always free!

09/19/2025

WOW 🍩 The amazing bakery crew at Brookside Farms made and delivered 550 dozen donuts - that's 6,600 individual donuts - for us at the Allegan County Fair last week! If you enjoyed the donuts and cider from our barn at the John Pahl Historical Village, make sure to visit Brookside Farms in Otsego/Martin this season for more.

The Old Jail Museum is back open Saturday, September 20 from 10am–4pm 🗝️🏛️ Admission is always free.

Answer Time✅

We loved the participation on guessing how many donuts we made for the Allegan County Fair! Here is your answer:
Our amazing bakery crew made and delivered 550 dozen donuts, which totals to 6,600 donuts this past week for the fair! We want to say thank you to the Allegan County Historical Society Old Jail Museum for entrusting us with this task and thank you to everyone that attended and supported them with their purchase of donuts and cider! Until next year Allegan County Fair!
If you enjoyed donuts and cider at the fair, we would love to have you back out to the farm for more!
Our Martin/Otsego location is open Monday-Friday 10am-6pm and Saturdays 9am-6pm and makes donuts fresh daily and has fresh pressed cider. We also have U-pick apples, U-pick raspberries, ready pick apples, pumpkins! Also check out our store front that carries a wide variety of jams, salsa, local made tortilla chips and many other local made gift items!
Our Paw Paw location is open Monday-Friday 9am-4pm and has U-pick raspberries, fresh pressed cider, ready pick apples, frozen blueberries and many frozen treats. Dont forget to try our home made jams or apple sauce! We also have an array of salsa, dressings, coffee and local made gift items! We hope you will visit one of our stores soon!

09/15/2025

What a week at the Allegan County Fair! 🎡 Thank you to the thousands of visitors who explored the John Pahl Historical Village and enjoyed cider & donuts from Brookside Farms 🍎🍩

We’re also proud to share that the Historical Society brought home three ribbons in the parade including a first-place win for our Pink Ladies in the marching unit category! 🎀

The Old Jail Museum is now back to its regular fall/winter hours: Saturdays 10am-4pm 🗝️ Admission is always free!

09/04/2025

The Old Jail Museum will be closed Saturday, September 6 & 13. We've broken out and are heading to the Allegan County Fair! 🎡

📍 Find us at the John Pahl Historical Village, open daily 9am-9pm. Step back in time with thousands of artifacts you won’t see at the museum, explore 15 historic buildings, pick up a souvenir, and treat yourself to cider & donuts from Brookside Farms 🍩🍎

🧵 Bonus: Catch live spinning demos Sunday (1:30-8:30pm) & Tuesday (5:30-8:30pm)!

08/25/2025

Join board member Mark Lovett for a presentation on the early history of The City of Allegan on Tuesday, August 26 at 6pm at the Allegan District Library!

Tuesday, August 26th, Mark Lovett of the Allegan County Historical Society will join us for a presentation on the City of Allegan's early history. No registration required. We hope to see you there!