Publication Date

Fall 2015

Abstract

The natural beauty of the Garden Peninsula and proximity on the Great Lakes has attracted people to its shores for thousands of years. The peninsula holds many intrinsic qualities: cultural, historic, natural and recreational. The Anishinabeg native peoples historically occupied the peninsula during warm fishing months and established seasonal camps here. The French Missionaries followed in the seventeenth century traveling along the sound between islands in Green Bay and following the Niagara Escarpment northward to the Garden Peninsula. In the nineteenth century, a breakthrough in iron smelting technology aided rapid industrial development across the United States and the peninsula experienced a growth spurt when the Jackson Iron Company built an iron smelter at the place they named Fayette on Snail Shell Harbor as well as other ancillary sites on the peninsula dominating the region from 1866 to 1891. This paper was written to fulfill program requirements for Eastern Michigan University, Geography and Geology Department, Historic Preservation Graduate Program for the 2015 fall term. I chose the Garden Peninsula as my topic of interest for several reasons. This project blended well my disciplines: business, history, geography and historic preservation. In 2013, I chose to work at Fayette Historic State Park as a history intern while I was pursuing my undergraduate degree in history from Northern Michigan University. I returned to the park in 2014 as a cultural resource intern as a historic preservation graduate student from Eastern Michigan University. As I applied my knowledge to the cultural landscape, I became interested in how I could make an impact in the community. Tourism is a main revenue stream to our local economy. As a citizen of the Upper Peninsula I am concerned about our economy and the preservation of our cultural and natural resources. As a park employee, I realized the potential increase in tourism to our region if the Garden Peninsula were to be named a Pure Michigan Byway. It is with this knowledge and interest my project came to life. I am hopeful the Garden Peninsula nomination will continue forward and be designated a Pure Michigan Cultural Byway.

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