UP road lands on National Register of Historic Places

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — One of America’s most scenic stretches of road, Brockway Mountain Drive in the northwestern Upper Peninsula, is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
The National Park Service recognized the 9-mile road built by the Keweenaw County Road Commission in 1933 for its historic importance in recreation, entertainment, transportation, social history and landscape architecture.
“Brockway Mountain Drive is unique in Michigan as a scenic highway built expressly as a scenic drive through rugged country to provide access to grand scenery for the public’s enjoyment,” according to the nomination.
The register is “the official list of the nation’s historic places worthy of preservation,” according to the National Park Service, which administers the federal program.
Brockway Mountain Drive runs between Copper Harbor and Eagle Harbor on the Keweenaw Peninsula. Its nine overlooks “provide incomparable views of Lake Superior to the north and expansive, forested valleys and hills to the south,” the nomination said.
One of them, West Bluff Overlook, stands about 725 feet above the surface of Lake Superior “and offers Brockway Mountain Drive’s widest panoramic views.” It’s also the place where the Skytop Inn gift shop operated from 1935 until 2013. The building has been razed.
“Its construction during the Depression era represents a concerted, and successful, effort to initiate a much-needed public works project, develop the local tourism industry, and provide relief to the unemployed,” the nomination said. The Depression hit Keweenaw County hard with copper mine closings, subsistence farming and high unemployment, and unemployed miners accounted for many of the hundreds of workers on the road project.
Before Brockway Mountain Drive, most of the county’s roads were used for logging, mining and military purposes, and the improving transportation for the less-populated northeastern reaches of the Keweenaw Peninsula “was not a priority during the first decades of the twentieth century, as the Keweenaw Central Railroad provided adequate passenger and freight service to the area.”
The economic hardships of the Depression sparked a push to develop opportunities for automobile tourism. And it worked. For example, between June 16 and June 30, 1939, about 9,800 cars entered the Keweenaw Peninsula through the village of Ahmeek.
“Since opening in 1934, Brockway Mountain Drive has been a leading attraction for visitors to the Keweenaw Peninsula, offering unparalleled views of the picturesque region of Michigan,” the nomination said. “The scenic road, together with two other Depression-era projects, Lakeshore Drive and the Keweenaw Mountain Resort and Lodge, helped Keweenaw County to diversify its economy and emerge from its dependence on mining.”
The road is open only seasonally, and Gregg Patrick, the road commission’s engineer manager, said traffic is busiest in the fall.
Use can spike at 1,000 vehicles a day, but at other times it’s 200 or fewer vehicles, Patrick said.
Property bordering the road includes mountain biking and hiking trails, as well as nature sanctuaries.
 

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