Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive - History

History

The road is named after Pierce Stocking, who spent his youth working as a Michigan lumberman and used to walk the bluffs above Lake Michigan near Empire. As a lumberman he had experience building roads. Stocking began building a road to the top of the dunes in the difficult terrain around the early 1960s. According to National Geographic, Stocking was "so awed by the beauty of the dunes that ... he built the road in order to share them with visitors." The road was originally known as the Sleeping Bear Dunes Park when he first opened it to the public in 1967. He operated the scenic drive until his death in 1976, charging $2 per car (equivalent to $8.07 in 2013) at the end.

The area around the roadway became part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore when the park was created in 1970, and the road became part of the park itself in 1977 when purchased by the park service. The name was later changed to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive in honor of the man. Starting in 1984, the National Park Service reconstructed the drive. It was paved for the first time, and a bicycle lane was added. The service also moved the entrance to the road and built the observation platforms. An original section of the road was closed because it was susceptible to drifting sands from the dunes. Stocking built the covered bridge, but the "NPS has maintained it and increased its vertical clearance to 13 feet 6 inches ." The renovations to the drive were completed in 1986.

In August 2011, the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was named by Good Morning America as the "Most Beautiful Place in America"; the designation came after a social media campaign to capitalize on the show's website poll. Since the park was awarded the title, attendance has increased. Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, featured in the morning show's broadcast, had 0.25-mile-long (0.40 km) lines of cars waiting to get onto the drive on September 3, 2011, an uncommon sight for a day in September.