Bob Buehrer experienced an idyllic style of life growing up in Leland.

He kept his nose to the grindstone, worked hard and like a lot of children at the time stayed out of trouble.

In fact the first time he walked into the red brick, Leelanau County jail was to get his driver’s license. Buehrer, brother of now deceased former county Sheriff Fred Buehrer, said he needed a license to drive his mother to town.

“The first time I went to the building was when I was 14. I had driven a car a couple of times and my mom wanted to go to town. She had asked Fred and he didn’t want to do it, so I said I would. But I had to get a license,” he said from his home in South Carolina.

Buehrer was issued a license from former Sheriff Bob White in the little building that served as the county’s law enforcement center for more than 60 years, and had been occupied off and on since.

The building. listed as a state historic site, will be spared through the efforts of a new owner, according to a developer who is purchasing the county property.

“I thought it was kind of funny,” Buehrer said. “I had already driven a care twice, but didn’t have a license.”

The future of the 107-year-old jail with just enough room for a small office and two cells was in jeopardy when voters approved moving the county government seat to Suttons Bay Township. Leelanau County residents Gene Kelly and James Varley have signed a purchase agreement for the county-owned property formerly occupied by the county seat, which they plan to turn into a residential development.

Kelly presented the latest version of plans for a 20-unit development tentatively called Rivertown to the Leland Township Planning Commission last week. The commission has not scheduled a public hearing on the planned unit development application as commissioners are seeking more detailed information. The next scheduled meeting of the commission in Wednesday, April 2, at 7 p.m. in the township office.

Kelly said Monday while final plans for the development are not set, one important detail is. Kelly said he has an agreement in place with a man from Lake Forest, Ill., to purchase one of three single family resident lots that will have frontage on the Leland River. His lot includes the historic jail building.

“His family owns a couple different national historic sites out east. He found out about what we are doing here and said he wants to buy the lot and keep the jail as it is,” Kelly said. The man has asked Kelly to keep his identity private. Kelly said the man has signed an agreement to purchase the lot once the development receives final approval from the township.

Other memories Buehrer had about the jail include a short-lived break out and watching Will Dalton, the “keeper of the keys” for the jail, take meals for inmates from his home on Main Street to the jail in a basket covered with a white cloth.

“The second time I was at the jail some young men who had been picking cherries in the area were arrested for causing trouble. They were in one of the cells and managed to work one of the bars in the window loose and knocked a hole in the wall. They got out, but didn’t get very far. I think they caught them down by the Bluebird,” Buehrer said.

Will Dalton was the father of Elmer Dalton, who at the time of Buehrer’s youth was the county clerk.

“Part of his duties as keeper of the keys was he was responsible for providing meals for the inmates. So every day you could see Will walking down Main Street in Leland carry a basket full of the meals his wife prepared for the inmates, covered by a white cloth,” he said.

Bill White, whose grandfather Robert as the longest serving county Sheriff from 1939-64, said the jail served as a hang out for children in Leland. “Grandpa and Grandma were everyone’s grandpa and grandma,” White said.

According to White the old jail rarely had any hardened criminals in it. “It only had two cells, usually someone who had drank too much and needed to sleep it off. My uncle Otto used to come down to the jail and play cribbage with the inmates,” he said.

For White and a majority of the people he grew up with in Leland the jail served as a safe place to visit. “It really was more of a social hang out. The parents knew where their kids were, they were down at the jail,” he said.

About the only time he can remember anyone getting into trouble at the jail was when some of the boys were out shooting bb guns. White said apparently some were too rambunctious.

Grandpa White took their bb guns and put them in a closet at the jail.