In the early settlement of the area, Dr. George O. Switzer was a faithful and reliable presence in times of need, seeing Ludington through a diphtheria epidemic where 200 children died, practicing in Pentwater for nearly two decades, and having a lake (Switzer Lake) named for him near Baldwin.

The Switzer family were among the early settlers in Yates Township of Lake County. As a young man, Switzer had a hankering to “save lives, minimize human misery, find an outlet for his prodigious energy and fulfill his ambitions.”

He taught in Baldwin in the 1870s to save up for Bennett Medical School in Chicago, predecessor to the Chicago Medical College.

On completion, Switzer immediately took up practice in Ludington in April of 1881, as assistant to Dr. Philip Shorts who had a drug store on Ja

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