One of the jewels of Northern Michigan is the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, part of the U.S. national park system. The lakeshore encompasses the natural beauty of sweeping sand dunes and wooded forests as well as abandoned villages turned into museums. One of those abandoned towns is Glen Haven.
Glen Haven was settled in 1851 when C. C. McCarty built a saw mill and inn on the Lake Michigan beach near Glen Arbor, MI. By 1878 Glen Haven had become a harbor for steam ships to replenish their supply of wood fuel. D. H. Day continued development of the community and by 1920 Day had established a fruit canning company near the beach.
The Cannery building is now a boathouse museum with a number of interesting vessels on display. With the extension of the railroad to Glen Haven the shipping dock went unused and closed in 1931.
Glen Haven continued to be a tourist destination until the 1970s when the National Park service bought up what was left in the village. The inn Closed in 1972. NPS has restored a number of the buildings as museums and tourists continue to visit especially in the summer.
The General store has been restored and serves as an exhibit and visitor's center. Other buildings that have been restored include the blacksmith's shop.
All of the vintage hardware in the restored buildings is made on site in this working blacksmith's shop. During the summer visitors can watch skilled smiths and apprentices make hooks, hinges and other iron products for restoration use.
Glen haven gives all the opportunity to learn about the life of loggers, sailors and tradesman in Northern Michigan. Insights about fishing, farming and tourism are ours for the asking.
Source material from the National Park Service web site
© 2009 Tim Marks all rights reserved
I love what they've done with Glen Haven. I hope they keep it this way and don't clutter it up with more non-authentic attractions like other places feel they have to do. There's plenty to engage visitors here, and it's a nice representation of the history of the area.
That boat in the second photo looks a little like it is wearing a rope mustache to me!
Posted by: Dominique | November 11, 2009 at 08:29 AM
This is great! I've visited the U.S. Life-Saving Service (precursor to the coast guard) museum out there over the years and had always hoped these buildings would be restored so people could walk through them and see how they looked back in their heyday.
I love seeing Michigan's history preserved.
Posted by: Andrew | November 11, 2009 at 08:37 AM