Sleeping Bear Dunes A Nationalized Lakeshore: The Creation and Administration of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

"Many of our lakes are already overly-developed," complained a Michigan DNR spokesman in 1973. "There are just too many people now threatening this beautiful resource of our state, and we can no longer ignore it." It was fear of just such a scenario that triggered the long and bitter fight to create Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Even before the dedication of the lakeshore in 1977 the need for the lakeshore was becoming increasingly clear to all but the staunchest opponents of federal management. At hundreds of resort communities in the Upper Great Lakes region increasingly intensive development and the eutrophication of lake waters threatened treasured scenic areas. While the national lakeshore helped to spare Sleeping Bear Dunes from those concerns, those same development forces helped to ensure that the park continued to be the focus of a conflict over how to make federal environmental management work. [1]

The period of the late 1970s and early 1980s was one in which the National Park Service, the Congress, and the people of northwestern Michigan reassessed the lakeshore. The preparation of a general management plan for Sleeping Bear was the occasion for old battles to be fought anew between property owners and the lakeshore. But it was also an opportunity for the residents and summer users of the dune country to finally accept the presence of the National Park Service as an established part of the regional landscape. "The park is here," commented Arthur Huey, a prominent Leelanau County landowner, "Now I want to see this become the best national park in the country." While not all of the opponents shared Huey's sense of good will, the late 1970s and early 1980s was a period when the promise of cooperation began to emerge from the clatter of land acquisition conflict. It was also a time when the growing size of the lakeshore's budget and staff allowed it to begin to meet the promise of the 1970 congressional act which established the lakeshore.

The New Superintendent: Part Ranger, Part Academic

"I just met your new superintendent," said a sprightly seasonal employee from the University of Michigan. "He's a professor at Ann Arbor." The small group of full-time staff gathered in conversation just laughed at her remark and then patiently explained that whoever was chosen as superintendent would come from within the National Park Service, certainly not from a university. "Whenever the selection is made," the seasonal intern was assured, "we'll let you know who it is." Several days later it was announced that Donald R. Brown, an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan, would be the lakeshore's second superintendent. The appointment was not, however, as unlikely as it first appeared to be. Brown was a career park ranger with experience at Rocky Mountain National Park, Sequoia, Olympic, and Blue Ridge Parkway. During his nineteen years in the park service Brown had shown a flair for planning and education. He served for a time at the Albright Training Center before becoming the director of the University of Michigan's International Seminar on National Parks, part of the School of Natural Resources. The forty-four year old was a native of Michigan and a graduate of Michigan State University. 2]

Brown first came to Sleeping Bear as the acting superintendent in June 1977. He officially became the superintendent in October of that year, after Martinek elected to retire. The two men were in stark contrast. Martinek was a traditional park ranger, tested through years of self-sufficient backcountry management. One former colleague described him as "an old Smokey the Bear type, in the very best sense of that style." Brown was more of a team player, anxious to hear from everyone, open to ideas from outside the service. While his predecessor was a "take charge guy," Brown was more low key and deliberative. The new superintendent was comfortable with ideas and concepts, disposed to deliberation. He was well-suited to a park that had a rapidly growing staff and which was about to embark on a critical strategic planning process. [3]

While Brown had the academician's love of the give-and-take of ideas, he was in his own way a thorough park ranger. He loved the outdoors and was determined not to let the demands of the job to keep him locked in the office. He loved to ski and he personally worked with his staff to lay out more cross-country trails throughout the lakeshore. "We have to know how to use this park under all conditions," he announced to the staff his first winter at Sleeping Bear. He then led the entire group on a weekend winter camping exercise. "We thought it was great," recalled one of the rangers. The outing taught basic winter survival skills, oriented the staff to how year-round use of the lakeshore could be promoted, but most important of all, it quickly drew the staff and the superintendent together as a team—a vital concern as a crucial and trying planning process was underway. [4]

The General Management Plan Process

Less than a month after the dedication of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore the park was able to begin the long delayed development of a new master plan, or to use the new terminology, a general management plan. Superintendent Brown was optimistic that the plan would evolve very quickly, in part because there had been considerable planning underway at the lakeshore. The wilderness study was completed in 1975. A year later "Marty" Martinek and Charles Parkinson completed, respectively, the Statement of Management and Statement of Interpretation which constituted crucial parts of the general management plan. With the help of the Federal Highway Administration a scenic road study was also in hand. To pull together these reports and shape a unified comprehensive plan for the dune park the regional office enlisted a five man Denver Service Center team: Frederick K. Babb, Project Manager; James L. Massey, interpretive planner; Richard G. Schneider, Recreation Planner; John N. Albright, historian; and John W. Hoesterey, writer/editor. The effort to complete the general management plan began in November 1977 with a two informational public meetings, one in Beulah and the other in Glen Arbor. [5]

Aside from some brief remarks at the celebratory dedication of the lakeshore a few weeks earlier the public meeting at Glen Arbor on November 2, 1977 was Superintendent Brown's first opportunity to represent the lakeshore before the public. It was a baptism of fire. A "sometimes unruly audience of about 300" gathered in the Glen Arbor Township Hall for a session that served to put the agency on notice of the strong opposition to the scenic road plan, as well as to provide a much needed-opportunity for local residents to vent their dissatisfaction with the National Park Service. "The entire Sleeping Bear project was born in secrecy," complained Arthur Huey, the founder of the Leelanau School. "There has never been a mutual understanding between us." Huey went on to accuse the park service of underestimating "the intelligence and sincerity of our residents." But there was little understanding of the lakeshore's position when Superintendent Brown clearly stated he was "firmly committed" to the scenic road corridor. "It was in the original act of 1970 and we are responsible for its acquisition." That drew complaints that the agency had already made up its mind and the whole public process was a farce. "The jeers and catcalls grew louder and more frequent," one resident recalled. "The boys in green uniforms were starting to take on a granite hue." Less critical observers granted that Brown "knows how to keep his cool." Like so many public meetings before the principal result was to draw a line in the sand between the "bureaucrats" and the "people." 6]

The scenic road plan was easily the most controversial issue before the general management planning team. The road was integral to the concept of the lakeshore adopted by Congress in 1970. The vistas offered from the Glen Lake highlands were featured prominently in the prospectuses developed by the park service to promote the lakeshore bill. Once local opposition shot down the prospect of including Glen, Platte, and Little Traverse lakes within the lakeshore the scenic road was included. The public, which was all but walled off from those lakes by private ownership, could at least look down on those beautiful blue lochs. Since park planners projected 3 million visitors annually the roads were also seen as vital to relieving traffic strain on local roads. "The 30-mile scenic road," Secretary of the Interior Walter J. Hickel declared in 1970, "will unify the lakeshore physically and provide public access to scenic overlooks." Although these were all important planning concerns the proposal also reflected the spirit of 1960s park developments. Scenic drives were popular with the public and planners alike in a country encouraged by advertisers to "See the USA in your Chevrolet!" Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore's organic act also contained a provision for a scenic road. Although the concept had much to recommend it, it would also be fair to say that the provision was also a hold over of "Mission-66" infrastructure oriented thinking.7]

The construction plan proposed by the Federal Highway Administration reinforced the impression the road would be a heavy-handed intrusion into the bucolic dune country landscape. Particularly controversial was a plan to bypass the town of Glen Arbor. Influential local residents had long opposed any attempt to widen the right-of-way of M-22. Large and beautiful pine trees hemmed in the approach to the town from the south. Rather than bring lakeshore visitors up that road and into the confines of the town the federal highway planners proposed skirting south of Glen Arbor. The four-mile bypass would extend from M-109 to a spot on M-22 northeast of Glen Arbor. This would entail filling in a small marsh north of Glen Lake and building an overpass over the intersection of several existing roads, as well as bridging the Crystal River. Almost the entire bypass would be an elevated roadway constructed on fill at a cost of $4.3 million. Less intrusive were the plans to run the scenic road around Glen Lake, through the uplands, almost a mile east of the lake. Nonetheless, both segments were unanimously rejected in an informal show of hands at the Glen Arbor meeting. Much less controversial was the southern approach to the lakeshore, which would lead along the Crystal highlands, affording wonderful views of the Crystal Lake embayment, Platte Lake, and Lake Michigan. 8]

Benzie County officials strongly supported the southern portion of the scenic road, as a means of controlling traffic and as a tourist asset for their area. The problem, not surprisingly, was with the Leelanau County portions of the proposed road. The idea that the scenic road would encircle Glen Lake engendered fear in many owners of lake lots. They worried that having park property on all sides of them—even if it was several miles away—would bring them under National Park Service control; perhaps even set the stage for the eventual federal acquisition of the whole of Glen Lake. Of course, there were landowners in the highland area that simply did not want to lose their property to the 150-foot federal right-of-way. They looked for any argument to build public support for their cause of stopping "another grab by big government of private property." Filling in the wetland south of Glen Arbor was the very legitimate stick with which to attack the scenic road plan. "That would be an environmental catastrophe," declared a member of the Glen Arbor Township planning committee. Business owners in the town, faced with seeing thousands of potential customers shunted around their town responded by proposing parking plans and road improvements to allow the park drive to proceed through the town. [9]

Even before the highway study was completed the scenic road had been a lightning rod for the discontented. In 1977, property owners in the proposed road corridor took the National Park Service to court. They alleged that the government had subjected them to an undue hardship when it formally notified them their lands would be within the scenic corridor, but then took no action to acquire the property. Quite rightly, they wanted "the cloud" lifted from their titles with a clear-cut decision by the government to buy or not buy their lands. Judge Noel P. Fox of the Western District of Michigan specifically ordered the National Park Service to "make up its mind whether it wanted property within a corridor for a proposed scenic road." The agency responded by speeding the road study to completion and committing themselves to acquiring the right-of-way. 10]

For his part Superintendent Brown was by no means wedded to the Federal Highway Administration plan. The litigation before Judge Fox had forced an affirmative decision on acquisition, Congress had authorized scenic corridors for the lakeshore and Brown meant to see that they were acquired. He was open however, to considering whether the corridors should be motor roads or recreation trails for hiking, bikes or horseback. Recreational uses of the corridors were part of all park plans for the scenic road right-of-way. The scenic highway report recommended that however the scenic corridors were defined during the general management plan, the National Park Service should immediately begin to make purchases along the right-of-way in order to forestall private development and escalating prices. After several months of articulating this position, Superintendent Brown was forced into an embarrassing flip-flop. An opinion rendered by the National Park Service's legal counsel warned the lakeshore that a strict reading of the Sleeping Bear organic act indicated that the corridors were meant for a scenic road and that if an automobile road was not going to be built, then the agency lacked the authority to purchase private land along the right-of-way. The Leelanau Enterprise-Tribune noted the progression in Brown's pronouncements from "must" to "will" to "may" and complained that the whole process was being conducted "at a bureaucrat's whim." Only several months into the general management plan process it was clear that the scenic road issue would make the effort a long and difficult ordeal. [11]

Paranoia over a "government land grab" was exacerbated by an ill-timed effort to politically reshuffle the membership of the Sleeping Bear Dunes Advisory Council. In February 1978, Secretary of the Interior Cecil B. Andrus selected Walter B. Hart for a place on the commission. Hart was the twenty-seven year-old son of the late Philip A. Hart. At the time young Hart was serving as the chairman of the committee to elect Democrat Dudley Buffa to the Senate seat held by Robert Griffin of Traverse City. The appointment to the unpaid commission was an understandable recognition of Senator Hart's crucial role in the creation of the lakeshore, but dark motives were read into the action because of its timing during the planning controversy and because of Walter Hart's partisan activities. The Record-Eagle in Traverse City broadly hinted that the appointment of young Hart, who favored gun control, was part of a liberal Democratic effort to ban hunting in the lakeshore. The Leelanau Enterprise-Tribune saw the action as a classic example of "Tammany Hall politics" by the administration of President Jimmy Carter. These charges resonated in heavily Republican northwest Michigan because the inexperienced young Democrat was tapped to replace Professor Louis F. Twardzik, Chairman of the Park and Recreation Resources Department at Michigan State University, the single most experienced member of the commission. There was, however, no conspiracy behind the appointment. The Secretary of the Interior had the right to name two members to the commission. He solicited two names from the Republican Senator Robert Griffin, and selected one for the commission. Andrus also solicited two names from Democratic Senator Donald Riegle, and selected one: Walter Hart. Far from being a political operative, Walter Hart was like many baby-boomers and only just then getting over the 1960s. He had recently enrolled as a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. The young Democrat served faithfully on the commission for two years, then lost interest in making the journey four times a year from his home in Philadelphia. The commission may have missed Twardzik's experience, otherwise the Hart appointment had no real impact. The whole flap revealed that degree to which every action related to the lakeshore underwent careful scrutiny. 12]

While the general management plan process was underway a second area of controversy regarding the lakeshore emerged. In June 1978, the Citizens Council of the Sleeping Bear once more demonstrated its astute sense of timing and helped to organize a legal challenge to the 1964 cutoff date for individuals with property developed after that date. Public Law 91-479 was perfectly clear that these summer homes were not eligible for the twenty-five year or life tenancies Congress allowed to protect the rights of established property owners within the lakeshore. In 1977, the park service as a matter of convenience had granted post-1964 property owners five years to enjoy their summer homes and make a transition to new sites. After 1982 the purchase of the bulk of the post 1964 properties would be completed and those sites could be returned to their natural state and opened to public use. The Citizens Council had long been critical of the federal government's use of the 1964 date because the lakeshore had not even been created until 1970. Eventually thirty-six property owners joined together to file suit in Federal District Court that the Sleeping Bear organic act deprived them of their constitutional right to equal protection under the law. They claimed that all property owners of post-1964 structures were not treated alike and that the 1964 date was arbitrarily selected. 13]

The charge of special treatment for some landowners hung by a slender thread of validity. The National Park Service granted one owner of a post-1964 home on Glen Lake a life tenancy instead of the mere five years other post-1964 owners were granted. The exception, however, was granted only because it offered federal taxpayers a considerable savings. The property in question was a choice twelve-acre tract on the south shore of Glen Lake. The owner offered to donate eleven acres of his land to the lakeshore if upon selling the remaining acre and a half, (which contained the permanent dwelling) he could use the residence for the rest of his life. By agreeing to the deal the National Park Service acquired a tract appraised at $230,000 for $71,030. Yet in the language of the suit brought by the other post-1964 owners the deal was characterized as "purposefully giving special treatment to those property owners who express a willingness to waive their constitutional rights to just compensation....and who make a gift of their property." 14]

On the heels of the announced lawsuit Charles S. Cushman swept into town. The Citizens Council invited him to Glen Arbor for their annual meeting. The thirty-four-year-old Lake Tahoe resident was not yet the national political figure he would be in the 1980s, but he was well on his way to making himself a thorn in the side of the Department of the Interior. He was the son of a park ranger and the owner of a small piece of property in Yosemite National Park. Cushman resented what he felt was the high-handed treatment of the National Park Service toward inholders. Only six months before his visit to Sleeping Bear Cushman had founded the National Park Landholders' Association to provide a check on bureaucratic power in the parks and he quickly recruited more than 2,000 members. "They have leaned over backwards to accommodate the environmentalists," he told the Glen Arbor audience, "and have become arrogant and cavalier in their dealings with the inholders." Cushman praised the Citizens Council for doing "a bang-up job." 15]

The lawsuit of the post-1964 property owners and the Cushman visit were signals of a sea change in public attitudes toward federal land management. In the western United States ranchers, loggers, and mining companies launched a concerted attack on the regulation of commercial leases on National Forest and Bureau of Land Management holdings. A well-intentioned, but ill-advised attempt by the Carter administration to eliminate all inholders in the National Parks brought the park service into the bull's eye of the discontent. The agency quickly tried to backtrack from this position and in 1978 National Park Service Director William J. Whelan ordered a public review of all agency land acquisition procedures. By 1980 these embers had been fanned into what became known as the Sagebrush Rebellion. The Presidential Campaign of Ronald Reagan popularized the anti-government rhetoric of Cushman and the Sagebrush rebels. In 1981, on the heels of Reagan's victory, Cushman was appointed to the National Park System Advisory Board. In Michigan the growing distrust of federal land managers surfaced in widespread opposition to the Department of Defense's plan for a vast, secret submarine communication system in the northern part of the state. Even worthy projects such as the North Country Trail, a hiking corridor from North Dakota to New England, drew critical scrutiny. That Sleeping Bear Dunes, long a controversial project, became the focus of property rights advocates and "wise-use" proponents was no surprise to the lakeshore staff, but it did not make the job of trying to prepare a general management plan with public input any easier. 16]

That point was made emphatically clear when an order from Federal District Court brought the planning process to a sudden and dramatic halt. The Sleeping Bear staff and the Denver Service Center planning team had focused their initial efforts on preparing a series of management options or scenarios for the future management and development of the park. To draw the public into the process of determining which options offered the best future for the lakeshore they had planned a series of public workshops for July 1978. The workshops were to be held in Frankfort, Glen Lake, Glen Arbor, Traverse City, and East Lansing. The small group discussions of the workshop were designed not only to give people a chance to comment on the options envisioned by the National Park Service but to afford individuals a chance to provide their own options. But just the day before the first of the workshops were to be held Federal Judge Noel Fox issued a temporary restraining order blocking the public meetings. Just as stunning as that thunderbolt was the source of the complaint, Mary Anne Williams of Traverse City, a long-time member of the Sleeping Bear Advisory Council. It was, in fact, Williams's long familiarity with the management of the lakeshore that prompted her legal action. She was one of the strongest voices on the advisory council in favor of declaring the bulk of the lakeshore as wilderness. Beginning in March 1978 she had been concerned about the relationship between the final wilderness recommendations and the general management planning process. For several months Superintendent Brown refused to make available to her a copy of the final recommendations on wilderness, even though former Superintendent Martinek had twice let her review the report in his office. Brown reasoned that these were internal proposals until approved by the President and Congress. The Director of the National Park Service actually turned away her Freedom of Information Act request for the recommendations, claiming they were confidential recommendations to the President. It was only after threatening legal action that she was given a copy of the recommendations. By then she was more determined than ever to see that those proposals were not diluted by some of the new alternatives under discussion as part of the general management plan. "It appears that someone in the park service decided to change the size and boundaries of the proposed acreage, and the whole wilderness plan was to be started over again at public expense as a result of the workshops," she told the press. Mary Anne Williams called for a complete judicial review of the process. [17]

For all of the park service's good intentions toward involving the public in the planning process, the whole embroilment was a case study in how big the gap was between rhetoric and genuine cooperation. There was no reason for the wilderness proposals to be kept secret from the public, let alone from an advisory commission member. The wilderness recommendations emerged from a very public series of meetings in 1974. The drafting of those recommendations had been mandated in the lakeshore's organic act. The same act required the National Park Service to protect the dune country from "developments and uses which would destroy the scenic beauty and natural character of the area." Yet the general management plan team still saw fit to propose alternatives that were substantially at odds with the wilderness recommendations already made to the Secretary of the Interior. After the Williams suit was initiated Secretary of the Interior Cecil B. Andrus and the National Park Service sought to have the wilderness recommendations removed as an obstacle. After languishing in Washington, D.C. for four years the proposal was suddenly dusted off in July 1978 by the Office of Management and Budget, reviewed and rejected as incomplete. The sorry chain of events was finally broken by two actions. In early August the Midwest Region called Superintendent Brown and the Denver Service Center team to Omaha to review the situation. A frank discussion of what everyone involved personally thought would be best for the future of Sleeping Bear revealed that there was virtual unanimity supporting the basic thrust of the wilderness recommendations. It was decided to change the management alternatives to conform to the wilderness proposal. The Superintendent then met with Mary Ann Williams and arranged an out-of-court settlement of her suit. They agreed that the planning workshops could be used to refine those elements of the wilderness plan that had been altered in the past four years. After a month the restraining order was lifted and the workshops were rescheduled. 18]

By the summer of 1978 the planning process that Superintendent Brown began so optimistically nine months before appeared to be in shreds. This appearance was not lost on the critics of the lakeshore or the press. In July an Ann Arbor News editorial charged "National park policy failing in Michigan." Superintendent Brown was personally chastised for opposing the wilderness recommendations and "misguidedly" promoting a "diversity of uses." Taking a strong environmentalist position the lakeshore was also criticized by the newspaper for allowing the Warnes Dunemobiles to operate and for the old Stocking drive, both of which allowed cars to traverse portions of the dunes. "The only way to see the dunes the way they really are....is to climb the dunes and walk the crest and/or walk up to them on the Lake Michigan shoreline." Brown was stung by the attack from environmentalists in the very city in which he had so recently lived. Less temperate criticism cascaded into the park headquarters. Using the soap-box of the Leelanau Enterprise-Tribune one of the more extreme critics charged, "Underneath every green park service uniform lurks at least a spot of red.....we still know a Commie when we see one." 19]

The battered planning process got back on track in November 1978. More than 900 planning alternative workbooks were distributed. The troublesome issues of wilderness and the scenic road were joined by a third major concern: should a harbor be built within the lakeshore to enhance boating opportunities on Lake Michigan and provide access to the island units of the park. The original master plan had called for the building of a boat launch and marina on Platte Bay, although it envisioned the larger boats needed to take visitors to North and South Manitou would be based at existing harbors in Frankfort and Leland. In September the Leelanau County Board voted to "remind" the National Park Service they were on record as opposing the extra traffic and congestion brought to Leland by having the island ferry based at their harbor. 20]

The heart of the planning workshops was a discussion of planning alternatives for each of the major divisions of the lakeshore. These alternatives were presented in a workbook that included maps of the lakeshore and a space for participants to make comments on the alternatives presented. The North Manitou Island unit was proposed to be managed largely as a wilderness. One alternative offered a very rustic experience with no buildings, roads, or trails maintained on the island as well as no designated camping or landing areas. The second alternative was to maintain a small number of buildings for visitor orientation and support. This plan would also support maintenance of the deer herd and the building of an all-weather dock. The South Manitou alternatives posed a similar set of choices. On one hand the island could be a wilderness camping preserve or some of its historic buildings could be preserved and interpreted and camping could be controlled in several designated campgrounds. The Good Harbor Planning Unit included alternatives, which allowed for the maintenance of agricultural scenes on the lands south of M-22, hang-gliding at Pyramid Point, and the building of a nature center on School Lake. The Empire Unit alternatives contrasted a future of minimal developments with one that included a nature center at Otter Creek, the interpretation of agricultural scenes along M-22, and the building a full-scale harbor at the town of Empire. The widest range of alternatives was offered for the Glen Lake Unit. The most nature-friendly proposal called for the abandonment of the scenic road proposal, the allowance of natural succession to reclaim farmlands, and the closing of the Hart Nature Trail to automobile traffic. Other options offered the utilization of the historic buildings in Glen Haven for interpretation purposes and the maintenance of agricultural fields, and the building of a harbor in Sleeping Bear Bay. 21]

The first of the workshops was held in Glen Arbor. Fifty people assembled at the Leelanau School to review the alternatives presented in the planning workbooks. After a few general remarks by Superintendent Brown the audience was divided into small groups for issue oriented discussion. As one group spokesperson said of her group's conclusion, "There was a feeling they wanted to leave what's here, now." This included leaving the dune ride concession open and opposing the tearing down of homes within the lakeshore. Another group asked that the historic values of South Manitou be preserved along with the island's natural setting. The scenic drive was singled out as the biggest single threat to "what's here, now." Among the few new construction projects endorsed by the workshop group was the building of a harbor at Glen Haven, although one participant joked that maybe the ferries should stay at Leland "so they get a chance to share some of our troubles." In a more serious vein, some of the groups called for a new Glen Haven harbor to provide a base for trailered boats as well as a commercial tour boat that could give visitors a view of the dunes from the lake. 22]

The Benzie County workshop was held at Benzie Central High School. Surprisingly the people who participated in the small group discussions disagreed with the county planners who generally supported the scenic road through the Crystal Highlands. While some liked the idea that even if the road was not built the corridor might make an excellent hiking or biking trail, others complained that "visitors could not be trusted to stay within the boundaries of the corridor but would likely stray onto private property." The Benzie audience also responded very favorably to the alternative of building a new harbor at Glen Haven. 23]

The best attended of the workshops was that held in Lansing, Michigan, which offered summer residents and environmentalists an opportunity to comment on the alternatives. If there was a common theme that emerged from all of the workshops, it was the genuine public concern to preserve what was best about the Sleeping Bear environment. The scenic corridor was roundly disparaged. One participant noted: "It is unthinkable to me that the National Park Service, which I always thought was dedicated to preserving the beauty of the country, would plan and promote a project which would cut a mammoth scar across the beautiful hills on the north shore of Crystal Lake." On the other hand, there were those who saw the acquisition of the corridor, without building the road as "beneficial for resource protection and recreation." Workshop participants tried to find the right balance between development and preservation. For the island units the public did not favor the alternatives which offered sparse or no development, rather they wanted the bulk of the islands to be managed as wilderness but for the park service to promote visitor access via trails, docks, and camping controls. At Glen Lake, where existing recreational developments were most intense, the public favored the least development-oriented alternatives. Similarly the public opposed turning the Platte River into a haven for large motorized boats. There were, of course, contradictions in the public's choice of alternatives. The majority of people addressing the issue of access to the islands favored moving the transportation docks to a new location, in deference to Leland's complaints of congestion. Yet the respondents also opposed increasing visitor activities in the already crowded Glen Arbor-Glen Haven area—the most logical site of an alternative harbor. Also ambiguous was the public response to motorized access to the dunes. Outright removal of Warnes's dune ride was advocated by forty-seven percent of the respondents, while another forty-seven percent favored keeping, perhaps in a reduced fashion, the ride. The Hart Nature Trail, the only scenic drive in the lakeshore, was overwhelming favored for retention by the very same workshop attendees who opposed building the Glen Lake Highlands scenic drive. Nonetheless, the workshops were a success. They were a rare occasion for the National Park Service to engage with stakeholders in a non-confrontational manner; providing a much-needed chance for a genuine exchange of ideas about the future of the Sleeping Bear country. [24]

An offshoot of the planning process was a groundswell of local support to change the name of the Hart Nature Trail. The idea first surfaced at a public meeting in Glen Arbor, perhaps as a backlash to the appointment of young Walter Hart to the Sleeping Bear Advisory Council. Certainly there was no love of the memory of Senator Philip A. Hart in the hearts of many Sleeping Bear property owners. Kathleen Stocking, the daughter of Pierce Stocking and a respected regional author, put a more positive spin on the issue by suggesting that the change would be a matter of "giving credit where credit is due." She suggested that "Since my father designed and made those scenic trails and lookouts, it would seem only right that they be named after him." Superintendent Brown approached the family of the late Senator concerning the issue. The family graciously and unanimously approved the name change, with Walter Hart himself making a formal resolution to that effect through the advisory commission. "Our family does understand the many sacrifices people have made for this park," commented Walter Hart. The name change was a well-timed olive branch to the people of Leelanau County. 25]

Through the winter and spring of 1978-1979 the planning team reviewed the results of the workshops and drafted the general management plan. That plan was strongly influenced by the workshop process. The balance between public access and wilderness requested by the public for the islands and mainland units was well incorporated into the plan. The vexing issue of establishing a harbor for recreational boaters and the island ferry was deferred to a special study to be given the lakeshore's "highest priority" and to be completed within three years. Most important of all, however, was the decision to abandon the scenic road in Leelanau County. The draft plan did continue to call for the acquisition of 1,125 acres of land in Benzie County to make possible a scenic drive along the Crystal Highlands as well as the purchase of 2,140 acres in the Miller Hill and Bow Lakes area of Leelanau County. The plan called for legislative action to allow the lakeshore to make the latter purchase in order to: "protect the significant natural features and scenic vistas and backdrops for Glen Lake." Bold plans were presented for the lakeshore's historic resources with "as many structures as feasible" preserved and interpreted on South Manitou Island and in the Port Oneida area, and the village of Glen Haven was to be closed off from automobile traffic and adaptively reused for visitor services. Empire was selected as the site of a combined park headquarters and "interpretive facility." 26]

"The Park Service has responded clearly and creatively to the public input received during the recent planning process," was Mary Anne Williams's response to the draft. The lakeshore critic who had to file suit in federal court to stall the beginning of the planning greeted the draft with "relief and pleasure." The plan committed the lakeshore to maintaining five areas in the park as wilderness zones. A sixth zone, part of the original wilderness proposal sent to Washington, D.C. in 1975, was dropped from wilderness consideration with the concurrence of environmentalists. The Sleeping Bear Plateau could not be considered a wilderness area once it was determined that the Pierce Stocking/Hart Scenic Road would remain in place and open to vehicle use. The draft general management plan had the solid backing to Michigan's environmental community, but it was not as well-received by the landowners of Leelanau County. [27]

During the summer of 1979 the draft plan was distributed to the public and a series of hearings were scheduled to air comments and critiques. The later were quick in coming at the Glen Arbor hearing. The Citizens Council of the Sleeping Bear Area denounced the called for acquisition of Miller Hill and Bow Lakes lands as "a complete surprise and blatant land grab." Fortunately the mood at the hearing lacked the confrontational tone of previous public meetings, but Robert Knowles, leader of the Citizens Council, made clear that his group would strongly oppose any effort to change the lakeshore's legislation to in order to allow it to acquire more land. County and township officials supported this position. With great suspicion the Council regarded the effort to preserve sensitive lands as a covert park service scheme to encircle Glen Lake. Having failed to get the scenic drive approved as a unit the agency was seen as trying to acquire the highlands on the installment plan, piece by piece. At the August 14^th meeting at Glen Arbor Superintendent Brown and planning team leader Fred Babb attempted to defuse such paranoia by responding favorably to Citizens Council suggestions that zoning be encouraged to protect vulnerable upland tracts. Brown and Babb also agreed that Section 12 of the lakeshore's organic act be changed to forever remove the authorization for the scenic road in Leelanau County. Further they agreed that there would be "no authority to condemn lands for any purpose outside the existing National Lakeshore boundaries." "This is no land grab," Brown contended and he pledged himself to work with the Citizens Council "to make the scenic corridor issue one of the past." [28]

But Superintendent Brown's support of the Citizens Council's objections to the draft plan was premature. Neither he nor Fred Babb had cleared such a change with the regional office in Omaha. What appeared like an agreement on the plan in August, fell to the ground like an autumn leaf that fall. Insulated from local complaints and anxious to protect the validity of planning process, James L. Dunning, Director of the Midwest Regional Office, refused to back away from the proposed acquisition of Miller Hill lands and the Bow Lakes. The General Management Plan approved by Director Dunning included the acquisition of new lands. It was an embarrassing flip-flop for the park superintendent. It seemed to validate the quip of one critic, "he talks a good game, but when you come right down to it he's a puppet." Furious, the Citizens Council accused Dunning of ignoring the "opposing voices of the public, their elected township and county officials, and your own Lakeshore Advisory Commission. You even overruled your own Project Manager and your Park Superintendent." In a full-page public letter printed in the Traverse City Record-Eagle the park critics predicted "We successfully fought your effort to encircle Glen Lake in one huge corridor bite. We will continue to fight any effort to encircle us by a series of little bites, acre by acre, year by year." 29]

Meanwhile, back in Omaha the Sleeping Bear General Management Plan was accepted. On November 12, 1980, Regional Director Dunning announced that the plan would move to the implementation stage. Due to the extensive public involvement in the preparation of the plan it was decided that no environmental impact statement would be required. Sleeping Bear finally had a blueprint for its future, even if major issues, such as the location of the harbor and the fate of the post-1964 inholders remained an open question. Superintendent Brown, the planning team, and the lakeshore staff were successful at bringing the dune country's stakeholders into the process. In the areas of wilderness designation and the scenic road corridor the public had a decisive impact on the new general management plan. Nonetheless, the new plan left the park service in the familiar position of remaining locked in disagreement about the issue of land acquisition. Rather than serving as a vehicle for ending conflict with the local community the planning process served to muffle and transmute those disputes. The tone became more civil but it would take congressional action to resolve the impasse over land acquisitions. [30]

New Bosses, In Frankfort and In Washington, D.C.

Superintendent Brown, in the words of one associate, "thrived on the tension, the give and take of the public meetings." While he had made several missteps during the general management planning process, notably offering a compromise over the Miller Hill and Bow Lakes acquisitions before clearing such a policy with Omaha, every one involved agreed he had done a good job. Even his opponents granted that he "made an effort to be more responsive to the needs of the community." In July 1980, Brown was rewarded with the position of Superintendent of Isle Royale National Park by the regional office. He had played an important transitional role at Sleeping Bear. "He brought us into the National Park Service," recalled one staff member after the hardscrabble, under-funded days of the lakeshore's beginning. In addition to good morale and a new management plan, Brown left behind one other legacy.31]

As visitors approaches the entrance to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore they are greeted by a sky blue and sandy brown sign accented with weathered nautical mooring posts. This design became the official signage for the lakeshore, repeated at every park attraction or facility. Superintendent Brown understood the importance of such design features in setting the right tone for visitors and he devoted considerable time to choosing the arrangement and color scheme. When the colors of the sky, water, and sand were finally chosen he insisted that they be used uniformly. So common was the use of the sandy brown paint at the lakeshore that years after the superintendent had left the paint was still known to the maintenance crew as "Brown brown."32]

The new superintendent was Richard R. Peterson, a thirty-seven year old career ranger who came to the lakeshore after only a year as the Assistant Superintendent at the new Cuyahoga National Recreation Area. It would be Peterson's responsibility to execute the plans made during the Brown years.

Richard Peterson came to Sleeping Bear when the park at last seemed to have a clear sense of its future direction. He told the Advisory Commission he was excited to be at the lakeshore at that time because the park was clearly "ready to go forward." Land Acquisition was nearly complete and a new master plan was in place. But no sooner was that plan approved than the money needed to implement it began to dry up. In 1980 Congress had the first of what became for almost twenty years, an annual fight with the executive branch over the federal budget. For a large part of the year the lakeshore operated on the basis of a continuing resolution because Congress was unable to agree on an appropriations bill for 1981. During the Martinek and Brown years the lakeshore had enjoyed annual budget increases which allowed the park to gradually add staff and increase its programs of protection and interpretation. After 1980 the growth of the lakeshore's budget would be much more uneven and financial austerity became a management necessity. Typical of the times was National Park Service Director William J. Whelan's plan to raise private capital to fund long delayed improvements at Yosemite and other "crown jewel" parks. [33]

National economic and social trends effected the lakeshore in important ways during the early 1980s. Slow growth and high inflation beset the national economy during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Arab oil embargo in 1973 and the stranglehold of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on oil production led to a sudden and severe increase in energy costs in the United States. This combined with high federal spending levels led to a debilitating inflation problem. "The silent thief," as inflation was known, shot up from six percent in 1976 to fourteen percent in 1979. Michigan was particularly hard hit as inflation spurred high interest rates, which made the purchase of automobiles difficult for average citizens. The high cost of gasoline led to decreases in motor tourism. Nationally, family incomes, which rose steadily through the 1960s, stagnated and declined during the 1970s. Visitation to the lakeshore declined three percent in 1979 and six percent in 1980. In that year Ronald Reagan was elected to the presidency on a platform of "getting government off the back of the American people." He vowed to fight inflation by curbing government spending and stimulate the economy by deregulating business and cutting taxes. [34]

The election of Ronald Reagan brought the "sagebrush rebellion" to Washington, D.C. In 1981, developers, timber companies, and ranchers who opposed federal land management restrictions were overjoyed by the appointment of James G. Watt to the post of Secretary of the Interior. Reagan eschewed the advice of conservative environmentalists who had helped him during his campaign, such as Nathaniel Reed, former Assistant Secretary for National Parks, and appointed people committed to changing policy. James Watt fit that bill. He had been the director of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, an organization dedicated to mounting court challenges to federal land management regulations. He proudly told reporters at his confirmation hearing that he found the Grand Canyon boring and had no interest in outdoor activities such as hiking or paddling. Bright, brash, and outspoken to a fault, Watt had a brief but stormy two years as Secretary of the Interior. Sleeping Bear Dunes would feel the heat from Secretary Watt's administration in the form of budget cuts and investigations. [35]

Land Acquisition

In 1980, the Land Acquisition Office in Frankfort was closed. Out of more than 1,400 tracts the National Park Service had succeeded in purchasing all but 143. By the fall of 1980 most of those 143 were on the way to being settled, including ninety-nine that were under condemnation. The biggest block of unpurchased land lay within the Crystal Highlands corridor. With the closing of the Frankfort lands office all acquisitions for the lakeshore were assigned to the lands office of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.36]

James Williamson, the lakeshore's controversial land buyer, retired in 1980. Unfortunately the wounds caused by the building of the lakeshore park remained behind—open and raw. Three land acquisition questions dominated the attention of the park staff during the early 1980s: 1) The future of the canoe livery businesses within the lakeshore; 2) The future of the properties within the lakeshore that were developed after 1964; and 3) The proposed acquisition of environmentally sensitive areas within the Glen Lake Highlands scenic corridor.

Secretary Watt, however, called into question the lakeshore's ability to deal fairly with each of these issues. On May 13, 1981 Secretary Watt announced that he was ordering an investigation into alleged improprieties in land acquisition at Sleeping Bear Dunes. According to an Associated Press account Watt wanted "to see why park boundaries have been drawn the way they have been, to see whose properties have been protected and whose have been taken." Among the other parks under investigation were Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area, Fire Island National Seashore, and Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The announcement had particularly ominous implications because only a week earlier an in-house memorandum had been leaked from the Department of the Interior to the press which listed Sleeping Bear and the above-mentioned parks for federal deauthorization. Now it appeared like Watt was looking to build a case for returning the parks to state control. The Secretary's office denied both reports only to have Watt admit to the land acquisition investigation when a New York Times journalist produced an audiotape of an interview. The staff of the lakeshore were caught completely off-guard. Regional Director James Dunning released a statement quoting Watt that "there is no National Park hit list." Dunning admitted, however, that the Secretary of the Interior was opposed to certain types of parks "from a philosophical point of view." All speculation ended on May 19^th when agents from the Inspector General's Office appeared to seal the Sleeping Bear land files. [37]

The investigation, which followed, was predicated on the fallacious assumption that gross mismanagement if not corrupt practice had been rife in the land acquisition office. But even the lakeshore's opponents had never charged such wrongdoing. "We think the boundaries were stupidly drawn," commented Dale Rhoades, a Grand Rapids attorney who represented aggrieved lakeshore property owners, "but I wouldn't say there was fraud or misrepresentation." At a Congressional subcommittee hearing on the investigation Assistant Secretary of the Interior G. Ray Arnett made clear that the probe was the result of "a large volume of complaints," and that he was determined to find out if they were spurred by criminal irregularities or "merely imprudent" policies. The National Park Service spokesman, however, refused to back-up the official story. "It puts us in a spot somewhat," explained John Vosburgh of the Washington, D.C. office, "but we can't say there are complaints when there aren't." [38]

Driving the probe was the National Inholder Association. Charles Cushman, the organization's founder, had been appointed by President Reagan to the National Park System Advisory Board. Cushman had kept in close touch with the Citizens Council of the Sleeping Bear Area and even attended its 1980 annual meeting. Cushman's former assistant Ric Davidge was made a Special Assistant in the office of Assistant Secretary Arnett. Together they had successfully convinced Secretary Watt to freeze all land acquisition funding and place a temporary nation-wide ban on the purchase of inholdings. It was Davidge who drafted the controversial "hit list" memorandum for Watt.39]

Federal investigators visited the lakeshore during the summer of 1981. Although there were no charges of illegality leveled, the investigators found no shortage of critics of park service land acquisition policies to interview. In particular investigators were interested in charges of intimidation by Lands Officer James Williamson and his staff. The Inspector General's investigators, as possible examples of favoritism, closely scrutinized two of the park's boundaries. A notch of private land west of Little Glen Lake, near M-22 and the dune climb, seemed to have been suspiciously exempted from the park. The other tract was the site of the Homestead Resort, a choice property at the mouth of the Crystal River. This latter tract had been left out of every plan for the proposed park going back to 1961, in part because the site was part of the Leelanau Schools, a private institution that had managed the area sensitively since 1929. Only much later was the land sold and developed into a major resort complex. 40]

In July 1981, the Senate subcommittee on Energy and National Parks held a hearing on public land acquisition issues. Inholders dominated the discussion with Sleeping Bear property owner Kathleen Stocklen playing a prominent role.

The investigation by the Department of the Interior's Inspector General's Office was followed by a less widely reported review of the Sleeping Bear land acquisition program by the Government Accounting Office. Neither report found gross irregularities. The Government Accounting Office report, however, was critical of the way in which the Sleeping Bear acquisition was carried out. The National Park Service was admonished for the way James Williamson's staff threatened property owners with condemnation. The Government Accounting Office also leveled two spurious charges against the park service. First, that the land acquisition team incorrectly had the owners of Category III lands sign, for no compensation, "prohibitive agreements." This charge referred to the agreements made between the park service and property owners in the "private use and development" zone. Contrary to the General Accounting Office, however, the Department of the Interior Office of the Solicitor ruled that these agreements did not constitute an uncompensated taking. Not only were they valid, they were positively mandated by Congress in Public Law 91-479 (the law which created the lakeshore). The second charge alleged that the National Park Service was managing the lakeshore incorrectly. Congress, the General Accounting Office report claimed, wanted the agency to "stabilize" development in the Sleeping Bear area, not return land to wilderness. This allegation conveniently ignored those provisions of the Sleeping Bear organic act that mandated a wilderness review. That review was a public process, held according to provisions of the 1964 Wilderness Act, with local stakeholders prevailing upon the National Park Service to manage more land as wilderness than the agency originally planned. More telling was the criticism that the lakeshore management had not engaged with local officials to establish a zoning regime that might limit the need for fee simple acquisition. Nonetheless, even the most committed opponents of the lakeshore found that the much-publicized investigations yielded a very thin gruel. By the end of his first full year in office Secretary Watt, and by extension Special Assistant Ric Davidge, retreated from their bold talk of "deauthorization." Sleeping Bear was, in Watt's words, "a great area—it should be continued."41]

A more important critique of the land acquisition program emerged from the Federal District Court in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 1977, sixteen property owners challenged the valuation of their lands by the National Park Service. The case eventually landed in Judge Noel Fox's Western District court. The property owners were successful in proving the substantially greater value of their land. A compromise settlement resulted in the National Park Service paying $2.7 million more for the property. Critics of the land acquisition program charged that the settlement clearly proved that the Sleeping Bear acquisition program had been mismanaged. Certainly the property owners had been twice victimized, once by the low government appraisals and again having to wait five years for their just payments. Congressman Vander Jagt complained the case illustrated "one of the most reprehensible aspects of the land acquisition process." [42]

Among those most disappointed with the inconclusive results of the federal land acquisition probes were Kathleen and Thomas Stocklen. They were deeply involved with the National Inholders Association and sorely disenchanted with their relationship with the National Park Service. In 1969, the Stocklen's moved from Florida to Michigan. They purchased Riverside Canoe Livery on the banks of the Platte River. Two other canoe rental operations also were in business on the river. As visitation to the Sleeping Bear area increased in the mid-1970s the number of people renting canoes soared. The Platte River became very congested with watercraft and the area where M-22 crossed the Platte River became snarled with automobiles. There were busy canoe liveries on three of the four corners of the intersection of the river and M-22, as well as unsightly boat storage buildings, cabins, a donut shop, and a miniature golf course. A commercial campground was located nearby. The park service initially regarded the canoe liveries as appropriate business activities to be located in the lakeshore, as they facilitated just the type of recreation activity Sleeping Bear was created to promote. Excessive, unregulated use, however, seemed to threaten the resource. During the General Management Plan process it was determined to consolidate through purchase all three canoe liveries and then operate a single business on the basis of a concession contract. While this plan was based on the National Park Service's duty to manage recreational opportunities "consistent with the maximum protection of the natural environment within the area," it was also a change in policy that was regarded by some of the Platte River businesses as a breach of trust. Condemnation proceedings were initiated on all three canoe rental companies. [43]

The lakeshore's plan to consolidate all three business, however, was stopped in its tracks when Thomas and Kathleen Stocklen produced a "Certificate Prohibiting Condemnation." The certificate was drafted by Stocklen's lawyer, John Daugherty and issued in December 1971. It originated in the spring of that year when the Stocklen's were negotiating to purchase Riverside Canoe Livery. They approached the Northeast Regional Office to determine if the Riverside property was designated for acquisition by the lakeshore. They did not want to move from North Carolina and begin a new career if the canoe livery was slated for government purchase only a few years down the line. The regional office, at that early phase of the project could not assure the Stocklens how the property would be rated: Category I, II, or III. Regional Director Henry Schmidt did clearly state that because Riverside Canoe Livery was in operation before 1964 "we cannot acquire it without the owner's consent." The Stocklens, however, wanted more than the regional office's hesitant assurances. Their attorney, John Daugherty, had played a significant role in the creation of the lakeshore and was serving as an inaugural member of the Advisory Commission. Based on his intimate knowledge of Public Law 91-479 and the park service's plans for the lakeshore Daugherty drafted the certificate and Superintendent Martinek, with the concurrence of the initial head of the land acquisition program, Donald C. Campbell, signed it. Campbell and Martinek regarded the document as a "firm commitment" and consistent with pledges they made to a couple of other anxious owners of businesses engaged in performing vital visitor services. By drafting the certificate Daugherty provided his client with a tangible assurance of the park service's intentions toward Riverside, but the certificate was worded carefully to preserve the agency's long-term flexibility. The certificate was subject to "termination" if Riverside Canoe ceased to be a commercial property and "at any time the Secretary of the Interior determines the use of said property would not further the purpose of said Public Law 91-479 or that such use impairs the usefulness and attractiveness of the area." [44]

Because only a handful of such certificates had been granted the park service was surprised when the Stocklens presented their document. In any event, Superintendent Brown, supported by the Regional Solicitor, argued that the certificate allowed condemnation for the purposes of controlling development at a vital recreation site within the lakeshore. While the issue was in the process of being settled, Chief of Land Acquisition James Williamson began condemnation proceedings on Riverside Canoe Livery. "Williamson came in," Kathleen Stocklen told a reporter. "I was waiting on a customer. He threw his briefcase up on the glass counter—I thought it was going to shatter—and demanded to appraise us then or he was going to condemn us. It wasn't a request—it was a threat." Wiliamson was an intimidating man, but he had threatened the wrong person. A former schoolteacher and a sharp businesswomen, Kathleen Stocklen refused to backdown to Williamson, Brown, or the whole National Park Service. She immediately drew the support of Congressman Guy Vander Jagt and Senator Donald W. Riegle. She also initiated legal proceedings against the lakeshore for "breach of promise" and "intimidation through lack of due process." In response to this vigorous defense the National Park Service beat a hasty retreat. Condemnation was stopped and Superintendent Brown advised the Stocklens "Please feel confident that no condemnation action involving your property exists at this time and none is contemplated for the future."45]

Rather than resolving the issue the park service's decision to back away from condemning Riverside Canoe Livery only moved the conflict with the Stocklens to a new stage. The National Park Service next attempted to negotiate an agreement with the Stocklens that would ensure that the canoe livery would be operated in a manner "consistent with the maximum protection of the natural environment with in the area." Such agreements were signed by a large number of lakeshore residents and were clearly mandated in the park organic act. The Stocklen's believed the park service was operating in bad faith and charged that Superintendent Brown kept to himself for several months the information that condemnation had been dropped on their property in order to force them into signing an agreement. Consistent with the National Inholders Association position the Stocklens regarded the agreement as a taking and demanded compensation before signing anything. More than money motivated this position. They were deeply suspicious of the National Park Service and were loath to sign anything that would leave their business subject to the whims of the federal bureaucracy. [46]

The National Park Service found itself in a quandary over the Riverside Canoe case. Actions were well advanced to acquire the other two canoe liveries on the Platte River. Once the lakeshore had to abandon its plan to purchase the Stocklen's property, the agency had to give the competing canoe liveries a chance to back away from their decision to sell their businesses. Nonetheless, the eventual outcome of the aborted plan to acquire all three canoe businesses was to remove, within a few years, both of Riverside's competitors and leave the Stocklen's in a monopoly position. For Superintendent Richard Peterson, this unintended result raised the importance of having a land-use agreement in place with the Stocklens. "Our objective in the agreement," wrote Acting Regional Director Randall R. Pope, "is to provide visitor protection and resource management safeguards which, under our original plan, would have been written into a concessions contract." It was clear that the government's own actions had resulted in a set of circumstances that greatly enhanced the value of Riverside Canoe. If a land use agreement was not arrived at before the last of the competitors were removed, the agency feared that its only future option in controlling traffic on the Platte would be to proceed to condemnation on the Stocklens at a time when the Riverside's value was far in excess of its value in 1981 or 1982. [47]

The Stocklen property remained an unresolved issue of contention for more than a decade. In an effort to better protect her property Kathleen Stocklen made numerous and wide-ranging Freedom of Information Act requests for documents relating to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. This personal investigation, along with the Government Accounting Office and Inspector General's scrutiny meant that the Seeping Bear land acquisition program remained controversial and highly suspect.

The plan to use condemnation to remove or control commercial establishments within the lakeshore was not simply directed against the Platte River canoe liveries. In 1978, the Kalena Excavation & Building Company near School Lake, the Bass Lake Body Shop, and Bob's Grocery near Little Traverse Lake were all acquired on the grounds they were not compatible with the purposes of the lakeshore. Closer in circumstance to the canoe liveries, which were clearly compatible with the lakeshore, if they were properly run, was the commercial ferry service between Leland and South Manitou Island. The Grosvenor family had been operating the marine link to the islands since 1918. They carried mail to the islands and to the formerly manned lighthouse in the Manitou channel. Over time the Grosvenors had acquired the land where their boats were docked, not just at the Fishtown site in Leland but also on South and North Manitou islands. At the same time the Stocklens were fighting off the condemnation of their business, the Grosvenors were locked in a similar fight to convert their business into a park service owned concession. [48]

Whereas the attempt to turn Riverside Canoes into a concession was based on a fear of too many people using the Platte River at any one time, the park service's fear with the ferry business was that there would too few users to make the service cost-effective. The early 1980s were a period of transition for the Grosvenors and their Manitou Island Ferry Company. The old backbone of their business, goods and commodities for Manitou residents dropped precipitously as the old island families lost their homes to the new lakeshore. The protracted wrangle between the National Park Service and the Angell Foundation over the price of North Manitou Island left that island all but closed to the public for years, at the cost of hundreds of lost customers for the Grosvenors. The gradual phasing out of federal mail contracts was another blow. A National Park Service study described the commercial prospects of the ferry operation as marginal at best. The government's fear was that as free enterprise operators the Grosvenors would be forced to steadily raise the cost of ferry passage to the point where ordinary citizens would not wish to make the trip to the island units of the lakeshore. Operating the ferry under a concession contract was a way to guarantee uninterrupted public access to the islands. Also, the attempt to purchase the holdings of the Manitou Island Ferry Company occurred at the very time the lakeshore was being pressured into building a new ferry harbor at great public expense. The tremendous federal expenditure anticipated in a new harbor inclined planners to public control of the ferry business. [49]

In 1978, the government filed suit against the Manitou Island Transit Company in an attempt to condemn their docking facilities. The Grosvenors strongly objected to the park service's valuation of their properties. Their South Manitou waterfront property was valued at $33,600 and their North Manitou lands at $14,000. These figures were based on the fair market price for frontage on Lake Michigan. The Grosvenors countered, however, that their docking sites were the basis of their ferry business and that if the lands were taken from them the family should be compensated for the full value of the ferry business. In 1984 U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Gibson reversed his own 1981 ruling and agreed that the higher valuation was appropriate. This cleared the way for the purchase of the docks. The park service then continued Grosvenor's ferry service as a lakeshore concession. After two annually renewed commercial-use agreements, the National Park Service and the Grosvenors agreed to a ten-year concession contract in 1986. 50]

The lakeshore's most important land acquisition decisions of the 1980s: the fate of the post 1964 property owners and the fate of environmentally sensitive areas within the abandoned Glen Lake Highlands corridor were both taken under consideration by the United States Congress. In 1982, a major revision of the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore organic act was approved which would have an important impact on the future of land acquisition within the park.

Relegislating the Lakeshore

Public Law 97-361 was an attempt to put into law the decisions that emerged from the general management planning process, as well as to address lingering complaints related to land acquisition. Signed by President Ronald Reagan in October of 1982, Public Law 97-361 was a carefully brokered compromise between public and private interests, environmentalists, and property owners. The three men most responsible for the amendment of the lakeshore's organic act were John Graykowski, James Markwood, and Congressman William S. Broomfield. Markwood was a legislative aide to Congressman Guy Vander Jagt. He took up Congressman Vander Jagt's commitment to introduce legislation to remove from the lakeshore the Glen Lake portion of the scenic highway. Graykowski was an aide to Senator Donald Riegle, a moderate Democrat interested in protecting resources vital to the character of the lakeshore. In HR 4062 Congressman Vander Jagt proposed to delete the Glen Lake corridor from Sleeping Bear lakeshore, disregarding the park service's call for the retention of three vital natural areas. The natural areas were a 160-acre lowland called the Kettle and Kame area, the Bow Lakes and adjacent bog that covered a total of 975 acres, and the scenic upland known as Miller Hill, 1,208 acres. Together these areas represented important elements in the geological history of the Sleeping Bear country. Congressman Broomfield was a "suburban Republican" from Bloomfield, Michigan, a comfortable bedroom community west of Detroit. A moderate ideologically and a fiscal conservative he would normally have hesitated to intrude himself into national park politics. Nonetheless, Broomfield introduced a bill to protect constituents who had summer homes in the area. H.R. 3787 extended use and occupancy rights for up to twenty-five years to people who developed Sleeping Bear property after 1964. Some ninety cottage owners were due to lose their summer homes in February of 1983. Congressman Broomfield proposed to extend their right to their cottages through the remainder of the twentieth century. His arguments in favor of the bill were based on fairness and pragmatism. Most of the post-1964 homes were located adjacent to cottages built before that date and which were going to be allowed to remain in private hands until the late 1990s. Why not, Broomfield argued, give people with the post-1964 homes the same rights as those who built a few years earlier, either way these lands would largely be unavailable for public use anyway. [51]

Compromise was essential if either the Broomfield or Vander Jagt bills were to get through the Congress. Environmentalists were loathe to let stand Broomfield's extension of use rights for the post 1964 property owners. The Wilderness Society announced that it feared setting a precedent which would destroy the effectiveness of cut-off dates on development in areas proposed for park status. Both bills had to pass muster with Congressman John Seiberling (D-Ohio), an environmentalist and chair of the House Subcommittee on National Parks. In October of 1981 Seiberling and his subcommittee aides visited Sleeping Bear Dunes. He met with Superintendent Richard Peterson as well as homeowners concerned with losing their land. While making clear his support for an effective Sleeping Bear lakeshore Seiberling also felt it was important to work out a deal that would protect local landowners rights. He himself was the owner of property within the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area. "Basically," he told reporters after his visit, "what we're trying to do is reconcile the general public interest with the interests of those who happen to live in the park." But the Citizens' Council was dead set against the inclusion in the lakeshore of the three natural areas from the old scenic corridor. They wanted to see the park service's land acquisition authority reduced as they still feared federal authorities were secretly attempting to take Glen Lake on the installment plan. [52]

The first step toward a compromise bill was the decision of Congressmen Vander Jagt and Broomfield to combine their proposals under one umbrella bill. Of the two, the Broomfield bill to help post-1964 property owners had more support. Even the Mackinac Chapter of the Sierra Club had come out in favor of the granting these people extensions, provided the park service had discretionary power over properties in environmentally sensitive or high visitor use areas. Congressman Vander Jagt dispatched his aide, James Markwood, to meet with the Citizens' Council and Superintendent Peterson. Meanwhile, Senator Donald Riegle had become involved with the issue in the upper house. His aide John Graykowski also visited Sleeping Bear and toured the Kettle, Bow Lakes, and Miller Hill. The more they became involved with Sleeping Bear, the more Markwood and Graykowski found other problems requiring legislative solution. Into the legislative mix were thrown issues such as wilderness designation, fee collection at the lakeshore, the park service's condemnation authority, and the land acquisition ceiling. A complex round of give-and-take followed with Congressional environmentalists such as Representative Dale Kildee (D-Flint) trying to expand Sleeping Bear's wilderness areas beyond even the General Management Plan guidelines. Senator James McClure (R-Idaho) demanded a provision, which returned all fees collected at Sleeping Bear to the federal treasury. In exchange for this concession McClure, Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, pledged to support full appropriation of the lakeshore's newly expanded land acquisition ceiling. With the lakeshore's organic act open for complete overhaul, Vander Jagt and Markwood sought to create a mechanism short of condemnation to settle the frequent disputes between land-owners and the park service over property appraisals. Adding to the "let's make a deal" atmosphere was the pending adjournment of Congress and the climax of the legislative election campaigns. [53]

Like most election eve bills Public Law 97-361 left a smile on the face of all of the interested parties. The Citizens' Council proclaimed victory because the scenic corridor in Leelanau County was formally removed from the park plan. "We're satisfied," proclaimed a Sierra Club spokesman. The lakeshore received authorization to purchase two of the three remaining environmental areas within the old corridor that had been protected by Congress in the 1970 Act. The Bow Lakes bog and the Miller Hill area were secured, while the glacial depression known as the Kettle was not open to purchase and could only enter the lakeshore through donation. Without this clear direction from Congress it is unlikely the park service had the authority to make new acquisitions within the old scenic corridor. Congressman Broomfield was pleased to be able to extend the leases of most of the post-1964 property owners until 1998. The bill also directed the Department of the Interior to formally submit the lakeshore's wilderness preservation plan to Congress by 1983. "The net result," according to the Sierra Club, "is that in the year 2000 the park will be a better place." The final bill also increased the land acquisition ceiling to $66 million. Attempts to create a binding arbitration procedure for contested purchases, were turned aside when the Senate amended the final bill. The 1970 bill creating the lakeshore had run some seven pages. The 1982 bill amending the lakeshore was twice as long, even so it left hanging several controversial issues.

Left unaffected by Public Law 97-361 was the proposed six and a half-mile scenic road corridor through the Crystal Highlands in Benzie County. People in the county were divided over the desirability of the corridor. Property owners on Platte Lake generally opposed the project as something that might degrade the quality of water within that lake's drainage. In 1977, the County Board of Commissioners had enthusiastically approved the proposed scenic road. Some business interests still favored the road as a way to guarantee that Benzie County was seen as the gateway to the Sleeping Bear Dunes. Unlike the politically savvy Citizens' Council in Leelanau County, the Platte Lake Improvement Association did not act decisively to have the scenic corridor removed from the lakeshore when the issue was before Congress. "Whatever they did, we've got to do," lamely observed a member of their board of directors after the fact. The formal removal of the Leelanau portion of the scenic drive from the lakeshore acted as a prod for Benzie County to bring the issue to a head. An ad hoc committee of the county commission was formed to review the road. That feasibility study established that there would be no serious environmental side effects from the road, that it would, however, be very costly ($18.7 million), and that based on current park visitation rates the road was not necessary. The park service's main reason for wanting the road—to maintain the area's rural character—was turned on its head, with the corridor cited as the main threat to the areas rural landscape. Finally in August of 1983 the county commissioners met and voted to reverse their earlier support for the park road. Later that year Congressman Vander Jagt introduced H.R. 4242 to delete the Benzie Corridor from the lakeshore. "I'd say it's dead as a doornail," one of the Congressman's aides told the press. "If the local people don't want it, forget it." Nonetheless no bill to officially remove the corridor from the lakeshore was ever approved and two decades later it remains part of the Sleeping Bear park plan. [54]

The amendment of the lakeshore's organic act dictated the dimensions of Sleeping Bear's land protection plan. The plan was the brainchild of Secretary Watt and was part of a nation-wide effort to make the National Park Service's land acquisition program more efficient and transparent. Land protection plans, it was hoped, would also cut the cost of park expansion by asking units to identify alternatives to fee acquisition and by encouraging parks to acquire only the absolute minimum interest in the land needed to meet management needs. The Sleeping Bear plan focused on the remaining 5,012 acres of non-federal land within the revised boundaries of the lakeshore. It proposed how best to use easements and other protection regimes on these lands as well as reviewing the status of the 1,399 acres of private land already under restrictive agreements. The plan also proposed scenic overlooks, parking areas and access roads for the Miller Hill and Bow Lakes preservation areas. The plan largely confirmed what had been enacted in 1982 and this angered many people who expected that the plan would reflect the new local consensus against the Benzie corridor. Public meetings presenting the plan were predictably stormy as old grievances were voiced and threats muttered. Even the proposal to use easements to protect the Bow Lakes drew flak from a property owner who argued he would rather the lakeshore bought the whole tract rather than place restrictions on the use of a portion of it. The sentiment, which drew the largest applause at the public meetings, however, came from State Senator Connie Binsfeld. "Landowners have had to go through turmoil throughout the creation of the park while officials come and go," she observed. "There is a lot of stress involved on the resident's part. Enough is enough—I hope there would be no more changes in the plan."55]

The lakeshore had to wait before receiving the funds necessary to purchase the Bow Lakes area. In 1987, Congress appropriated $2 million from the Land and Water Conservation Fund and a portion of the 725-acre bog area came under lakeshore management.56]

Managing More With Less: Lakeshore Operations, 1979-1983

With the adoption of a new General Management Plan, ten years of on-site management experience under their belts, and the amendment of the lakeshore's organic act, the National Park Service had for the first time a clear-cut sense of its mission at Sleeping Bear. Ironically, this clearer sense of mission came at the same time the entire agency was suffering from frustration over budget reductions. During the early 1980s federal-spending priorities changed. The administration of President Ronald Reagan annually proposed budget reductions for the National Park Service and other domestic programs while building the strength of the defense establishment. Reagan's priorities were at odds with the largely Democratic Congress, which led to annual disputes over budgetary priorities. Programs such as the Youth Conservation Corps, which had undertaken much valuable site development and restoration work at Sleeping Bear, were discontinued. Land acquisition funds were so reduced as to call into question the lakeshore's ability to even pay for properties under condemnation. The prospect of collecting entrance fees at Sleeping Bear was considered for the first time. Between the President's attempt to shrink the size of the federal government in the early 1980s and the burden of heavy budget deficits in the late 1980s the entire decade was one of belt-tightening and manpower shortages.

Sleeping Bear Dunes' development was circumscribed by these national trends. Despite a clear-cut need for the improvement of visitor facilities at the Platte River Campground and the Stocking Scenic Drive, little more than planning took place to improve either site. The slow pace of development frustrated even a fiscal conservative such as Congressman Guy Vander Jagt. "Each year seems to bring postponements of urgently needed public accommodations," he complained in 1979. Such a complaint loudly voiced and charges that toilet facilities at the lakeshore violated federal health standards shook loose a small increase in funding. New construction activity, however, remained largely stalled. The maintenance division devoted a considerable amount of its time to clearing properties acquired through land acquisition. The park remained headquartered in the old bank building in Frankfurt, far from the actual dunes. The principal visitor contact point remained the refurbished house overlooking Glen Lake. The park's collections and equipment remained scattered throughout the lakeshore in a variety of abandoned buildings. [57]

The opportunity to acquire much-needed storage and maintenance space presented itself in 1980, when the United States Air Force announced its intention to close its Empire base. Since the days of Superintendent Martinek the National Park Service had wished to use the hilltop reservation south of Empire, Michigan. But the lakeshore's claim on the Air Force base was by no means uncontested. The village of Empire wanted the lion's share of the eighty-seven acre base returned to the local tax rolls to make up for revenues lost by the establishment of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. A more serious challenge came from within the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Bureau of Indian Affairs put in a claim for the surplus federal property in the name of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa-Chippewa. The Ottawa-Chippewa wanted the base as a site for a tribal college and a light manufacturing plant. After a year of study, however, the Indians withdrew their request due to the high cost of converting the base to their proposed use. Secretary of the Interior Watt briefly put another obstacle in the way when he threatened to sell the base to the highest bidder, but this scheme fell away before Congressional criticism. It was not until 1983 that the General Service Administration got around to making the transfer official. The lakeshore received the bulk of the base with a small portion reserved for the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration to maintain data collection stations. [58]

While the Ottawa and Chippewa peoples did not acquire the Empire Air Force Base site, their visibility within the lakeshore grew during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In May 1979 the United States District Court ruled that the Ottawa and Chippewa had retained their aboriginal right to fish in the waters of Lake Michigan. The decision disrupted the Michigan Department of Natural Resources' delicate balancing of the needs of the commercial fishing industry and the powerful sport-fishing lobby. In the wake of the federal court ruling a third force was introduced into the equation: Indian fishermen who rejected state regulation over their fishing activities. Chippewa fishermen from Sault Ste. Marie and Bay Mills in the Upper Peninsula began to commercially fish in the waters of Grand Traverse Bay. As the Indians whitefish catches increased so to did the level of verbal abuse and physical harassment directed against them by sport fishermen. By August 1979 the Bureau of Indian Affairs approached the Superintendent of Sleeping Bear for sites from which Indian fishermen could launch boats on Platte and Good Harbor bays. The lakeshore cooperated by making access points available, but the park service would allow no formal commercial operations on its beaches. Nonetheless, local fishermen were "disgusted" by the lakeshore's cooperation with the Indian gill-netters. By October Chippewa fishermen were operating within the lakeshore at the mouth of Otter Creek. On one occasion forty sport fishermen organized a "beach party" at the end of the Esch Road, blocking the Indian's access to Platte Bay. The presence of a dozen law enforcement officers and the Indian's willingness to avoid confrontation and shift their activities to Good Harbor Bay defused the potential for conflict. The crisis atmosphere over fishing in the Sleeping Bear gradually dissipated in the early 1980s as broad protocol was negotiated between the Department of Natural Resources and the Ottawa-Chippewa to regulate commercial and sport fishing. [59]

By that time the National Park Service had its own conflict with sports fishermen. The problem began when the National Park Service issued a series of draft regulations on hunting and fishing within the parks. The new guidelines would have ended trapping with the lakeshore, an activity engaged in between ten and fifteen hunters annually. More explosive was the proposed ban on the use of minnows and spawn as bait. The regulations would have ended smelt dipping within the lakeshore and severely restrict steelhead fishing on the Crystal and Platte rivers. Michigan fishermen, outraged by federal support of Indian fishing were not about to let their rights be further restricted. More than 2,000 complaints flooded into Washington, D.C. The Sleeping Bear Advisory Commission formally protested the new regulations. Not counting on the volume of complaints alone to force a policy retreat, one of the advisory commission members buttonholed Secretary of the Interior James Watt at a fund raising dinner. "This is not right," Watt was quoted to have said, "Sleeping Bear should not be included in this." In the end it was determined that since Sleeping Bear's organic act specifically stated that fishing was to be conducted "in accordance with the laws of the State of Michigan and the United States applicable thereto," the lakeshore could be exempted from the national guidelines as it had an existing legal framework. The ban on trapping, which the federal courts had rather ruled was an activity distinct from hunting, was banned at Sleeping Bear after 1982.60]

The lakeshore won much needed good-will with the sport fishing community in 1979 when it assumed responsibility for dredging the mouth of the Platte River. Dredging had begun on the Platte in 1968, in the wake of a storm, which drowned seven Platte Bay fishermen. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources started the dredging to provide a way for boats to exit or enter the Platte River, saving sportsmen the long and potentially dangerous open water passage around Point Betsie. Michigan officials saw the operation as a temporary, stopgap measure until a harbor of refuge could be built at the river mouth. After environmentalists blocked the Platte River harbor plan the DNR found themselves with an expensive on-going responsibility to keep the river mouth open during fishing season. "Coho fever" began to abate in the late 1970s and the state authorities announced in 1978 that they would not dredge the Platte the following year. The river mouth, of course, was within the lakeshore so park officials made no plan to continue so invasive a procedure as dredging. However, as the fall of 1979 approached the lakeshore found itself the object of escalating public pressure to keep the Platte open for sport fishermen. Superintendent Brown lacked the funding to pay for the operation alone so he persuaded the Department of Natural Resources to share the cost of the effort. With extreme reluctance the state agreed to help with the dredging for one more season. "After this year," a DNR official said of the lakeshore, "it's their baby." [61]

The National Park Service wanted no part of an open-ended battle against the natural action of wind, waves, and sand. But as the summer of 1980 approached the pressure to dredge again began to mount. The community of Honor, Michigan, was planning for its fourteenth annual National Coho Salmon Festival. "There was a feeling," remarked lakeshore facility manager Merline Schlange, "that this dredging operation is absolutely necessary for the economic health of the community and the safety of the fishermen." The park budget, however, simply could not afford to contract for a dragline. Left up to its own devices the lakeshore would have had to choose between dredging the Platte or keeping South Manitou Island open to visitors. At the last minute the Washington, D.C. office scraped up $6,000. It was not enough to fully fund the project. Sleeping Bear was told find a way to get the job done anyway. The superintendent elected to dredge only during peak use periods, such as weekends. There was danger in this half-hearted commitment. The power of the sand flow in the Platte was such that without dredging the river's mouth would be impassable for boats within a matter of days. Park dredging gave the appearance of navigational maintenance, without the full safety benefit of a genuine commitment. By the second week of September tens of thousands of salmon were swarming at the mouth of the river; swarms of anglers responded to the news. On September 18^th between twenty and thirty boats were angling for salmon in Platte Bay when a sudden shift in the wind and weather turned Platte Bay into surging sea of white-capped swells. The boats made a dash for the mouth of the river. Chaos ensued when the first boats ran aground on the sandbar. The park service's dragline was not in operation, since Thursday was not considered a peak period. Boaters were forced to jump into the surf to pull their craft into the safety of the river. In the crashing waves boats banged into one another and fishermen were swept off their feet. The timely arrival of a Coast Guard Boston Whaler saved five of the fishermen, the others got a cold dunking and a bone chilling scare. All talk of letting nature take its course or of saving money ended that day. To Benzie County officials it was an eerily familiar repeat of the deadly 1967 storm and the local tourist economy could afford no further reprise. [62]

Within three days of the near disaster at the Platte, Sam Eberly, Chairman of the Benzie County Board of Commissioners and a member of the lakeshore advisory commission, had a meeting with Midwest Region Director James Dunning. Congressman Vander Jagt lobbied the Washington, D.C. office. Less than a week after the storm the lakeshore was awarded a special reallocation of funds to continue the dredging until the end of the salmon run. Since that time, in spite of occasional special studies, the National Park Service has made a commitment to maintain an unsightly dragline operation. Although it is a clear interference with a natural process, the dragline is a concession to sport fishermen and a small price to pay for having avoided the construction of a major marina at the Platte.

A New Harbor: To Build or Not to Build?

During an era beset with budget problems, it should have come as no surprise that the no-build option was deemed the most appropriate for the long smoldering controversy over a site for the lakeshore's ferry service. The single-most expensive recommendation of the General Management Plan had been to build a new harbor within the boundaries of the lakeshore. In 1981 a $309,000 congressional appropriation funded a study of five potential harbor sites. The project was directed by the National Park Service's Denver Service Center with engineering services contracted from the Ann Arbor firm of McNamee, Porter and Seeley, Inc. The goal was to provide a docking facility for the Manitou islands ferry and to provide recreational boaters with access to the Sleeping Bear shoreline. Such a harbor had long been part of the National Park Service's long-range plans for the lakeshore. Loud and persistent complaints from the village of Leland, the site of the Grosvenors' ferry dock, pushed the harbor study to the front burner. The Sleeping Bear ferry, in the minds of many village residents, contributed to traffic congestion in their scenic community. Five possible sites were part of the initial investigation: Glen Haven, Port Oneida, North Bar Lake, South Bar Lake—Empire, and Leland. The inclusion of the latter was simply as a part of a "no build" option, typical in planning documents. Nonetheless, the park service was excoriated in public for including Leland in the study at all. "I am shocked that this is being considered," complained a member of the advisory commission. "The people of Leland don't want it. Take the proposal back to Denver and tell them that." The Leelanau planning commission and its board of commissioners quickly went on record in opposition of Leland be included in the study in any way.63]

The harbor study also drew flak as a fiscal "boondoggle." The Traverse City Record-Eagle called for federal budget director David Stockman to investigate it as a waste of taxpayer dollars. "If the National Park Service wants to give me that $309,000 for the study I'll take it and retire on what is left over," commented Keith Wilson of the Michigan Waterways Commission. The park service had once sunk his harbor plan for the Platte and now he was quite willing to deride their planning process. "Everything the NPS wants to know about the harbor sites being discussed is already in the files of the Department of Natural Resources in Lansing. All they have to do is ask for it." Benzie County officials also took their shots at the study. Each of the five study sites was located in Leelanau County, which clearly did not want the harbor. Although Benzie County was further from the Manitou islands it wanted ferry docks badly and had the advantage of being able to offer two fully functioning harbors at Frankfurt and Elberta. For years Elberta had been the site of the Ann Arbor Railway's car ferryboats. The demise of that business left officials there anxious to bring another tourist business into the Frankfurt area. Spurned by the Denver Service Center study the Michigan legislature appropriated money for their own study of converting the state-owned car-ferry docks at Elberta to a park service docking site. [64]

Between 1982 and 1984 the separate components of the harbor study, engineering, visitor use, and environmental, were completed. The lakeshore presented the results to the public in a series of public meetings. The study results were sobering, with each potential site carrying a heavy price tag or considerable resource management burdens. South Bar Lake and Leland were not addressed in the final report as neither was in the lakeshore proper. Of the remaining sites Glen Haven was determined the best location from an economic point-of-view. A harbor there was projected to cost $3.4 million, although it was the intrusion of a great breakwater wall in the middle of one of the finest beaches in mid-America that was the true cost of the building at the site. The need to provide parking for several hundred cars and trailers, a ticketing facility, site administration, toilets, and fire protection to support the harbor would also have blighted the historic charm of the hamlet of Glen Haven. The two Port Oneida sites investigated would have had less secondary impacts, but the shallow water of the area would have required higher initial construction costs, between $4.3 and $6.8 million. The North Bar Lake site had little to recommend it as it carried the hefty price tag of Port Oneida with environmental damage as bad as Glen Haven. For a park unit charged by Congress to protect the Sleeping Bear area "from developments and uses which would destroy the scenic beauty and natural character of the area," a new harbor proved hard to justify. [65]

The National Park Service had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and four years of planning to reach a pretty bad set of alternatives. But it was time and money well-spent if only because during the course of those studies and deliberations public sentiment shifted. The image of a five hundred-foot breakwater wall jutting into Sleeping Bear Bay and a five hundred-car parking lot in Glen Haven was more than most Leelanau County residents could abide. Glen Arbor townsfolk railed against the docking facility plan. Their strongest argument, made by an advisory commission member was: "The Park cannot, lawfully or in good conscience, purposefully destroy what it is charged to protect." The environmental argument joined neatly with the community's frugal Republicanism. "We can't understand," editorialized the Traverse City Record-Eagle, "how the Park Service can seriously consider building a new $4 million harbor......when good service is already provided from a good harbor just a short distance from the islands." The very people who in 1981 had criticized the park service for even including Leland as a "no-build" option were by 1984 clamoring, "leave it in Leland." The Detroit Free Press logically reasoned: "If the ferry slip is being moved because the town found it a nuisance, what impact does the Park Service suppose it is going to have on the dunes?" A new facility within the park the editors argued would be "a real failure of imagination." [66]

Even within the town of Leland sentiment began to shift in favor of retaining the docking facility. Michael Grosvenor, owner of Manitou Island Transit had worked hard over the years to manage the surge in ferry customers. He developed a series of remote parking lots and connected them to the dock via a shuttle service. The historic Fishtown area still thronged with people just before or after a ferry docking, but the bustling maritime scene was in keeping with the threshold experience of a genuine harbor. Leland merchants were uncomfortable with the sentiment that the docking should be removed because of traffic congestion. If Grosvenor, one of the few merchants to provide parking for his customers was driven from the town, what could other businesses expect in the future? Restaurants in particular were loath to see the ferry relocated from the town. Breakfast at the Bluebird had long been a tradition among visitors waiting to go over to the Manitous. "Like it or not," a town resident concluded, "Leland cannot and will not be excluded from Michigan's No.1 industry, tourism." In the end that was the conclusion reached by most observers. The Advisory Commission recommended the "no-build" option and in March 1985 Midwest Regional Director Charles Odegaard ordered the lakeshore to forego constructing a new facility. [67]

Conclusion

The period from 1978 to 1983 was a period of planning and controversy in which the most significant decisions were those which recommended taking no action at all. It was a period when the executive branch itself questioned the efficacy of federal environmental leadership. A significant portion of the lakeshore, the scenic highway around Glen Lake was removed from the park plan, but this fell far short of the heady "Reagan Revolution" rhetoric of returning the whole of Sleeping Bear to state control. Four and a half years were spent studying a possible site for a harbor, which upon reflection was not needed after all.

What was produced at Sleeping Bear during this five-year transition period were plans; a General Management Plan, plans for new campgrounds, plans for a new park headquarters, plans to complete the land acquisition program, plans for a harbor that would never be built. The plans laid out the path by which the National Park Service would meet its mandate in northwest Michigan to serve the public's recreation needs and preserve a special environment. Perhaps more important than the plans themselves was the process by which the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was reimagined between 1978 and 1983. During these years Sleeping Bear evolved from being a new area to an established entity. The demise of the scenic drives compromised the vision of people like E. Genevieve Gillette who wished to see the lakeshore embody the entire geological history of the region's unique landscape. Also compromised were the aesthetics of graceful park drives and breathtaking viewsheds that New Deal-influenced planners like Allen T. Edmunds had seen as central to the park plan. These losses were the price for what was gained: a genuine, if always painful, engagement with the people of the Sleeping Bear area. The public turned the direction of National Park Service planning on the issue of the scenic drives. The service won acceptance for the special conservation areas within the defunct corridor. Through the park service's reluctant operation of a drag-line at the mouth of the Platte and Leland's wary embrace of the Manitou ferry dock, the habit of consultation and even cooperation was beginning to be learned.

Whether consultation between the local community and the lakeshore could be used to produce a better lakeshore or whether the long-term interests of the nation and the local interests of northwestern Michigan could be harmonized to preserve a treasured landscape, were the questions faced by the park service in the 1980s and 1990s.