Glen Haven Dock

Subjected to big surf and winter ice packs, docks on the big lakes were precarious.

NPS credit

Quick Facts

Amenities

3 listed

Beach/Water Access, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Picnic Table

The dock played a central role in the life of Glen Haven. Built around 1865, the dock stretched a hundred feet offshore and supplied docked steamships with cordwood, the original steamship fuel, cut from Northern Michigan forests. Around the turn of the 20th century, up to 70 vessels could be found anchored in Sleeping Bear Bay or at the docks during the shipping season. Original dock pilings can often be spied peeking out above Lake Michigan's waves.

During the period between 1910 and 1931, the dock held the crowds gathered on Saturdays and Sundays waiting for arriving resort guests or for fathers and husbands visiting their summer resident families for the weekend. These men would leave Chicago Friday night, explained a tourist publication, "and get here the next morning; first stop. They're with their families until Sunday night when the boat takes ‘em back again, ready for the job. Great for 'em!"

According to summer visitor Gladys Dillon Young, "All the people would meet and sit for hours on the front porch waiting for boats to come in. Boats never seemed to come when they were due. People always went down on Sundays to watch. That was the highlight of the week."

Lake Michigan weather did not always make for smooth sailing. One summer family, the Drummonds, recalled sending a family member off on a foggy day. They waited for the ship to come in from the fog to dock:

"So dense a fog covers the water that we can only see a few hundred feet. We hear the boat's whistle far out. The bell on the pier clangs in answer. Again and again they signal to each other, but the wind prevents the sound from the bell reaching the boat. But at last she hears it and discovers herself a mile or so past the dock. All eyes strain to pierce the fog. By sound, we have located the position of the boat and at last a darker blur appears in the fog which slowly looms darker and larger-a faint glimmer penetrates the mist and like a phantom ship with all her lights alit she glides in and makes a beautiful landing.

"We bid Joseph goodbye 'til next Sunday and watch the boat fade into the fog-lights, music, and all swallowed up a few hundred yards away."

Standing in the sand near Glen Haven dock is a wayside panel entitled "Arriving...Glen Haven!" illustrating ship travel to the dock.