Happy 54th Birthday, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore!

Sleeping Bear Bay by Mark Smith

Every time I see this view of the Sleeping Bear shoreline, I think about what might have happened if Senator Phillip Hart & countless others hadn’t fought as hard and as long to protect this globally unique treasure. Almost anywhere else in Michigan or America with this mix of clear water & sandy shoreline is lined with the homes of the wealthy. Although the same trend was overtaking Sleeping Bear’s Lake Michigan shoreline,  54 years ago today preservation was victorious and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore became the third US National Lakeshore:

Beginning in 1919 a small portion of what is now the national lakeshore was set aside as a state park. The idea of a national park in northwestern Michigan did not surface until the National Park Service’s Great Lakes Shoreline Survey visited the area in 1958. Between 1959 and 1970 there was a continuous and controversial effort in Congress to create a park unit around the Sleeping Bear Dune. The legislative leader of the Sleeping Bear park proposal was United States. The senator’s persistence and patience in the end led to the creation of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on October 21, 1970.

You can learn more about the creation of the Lakeshore in the online book A Nationalized Lakeshore: The Creation & Administration of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Mark captured the grand sweep of Sleeping Bear Bay perfectly back in September of 2021. See his latest at Downstreamer on Flickr!

Much (much) more about the history & present day of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Leelanau.com.