Wayside: DH Day's Million-dollar Plan

Interpretive panel illustrating the development DH Day planned for Alligator Hill.

NPS credit

Quick Facts

Amenities

1 listed

Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits

Wayside: DH Day's Million-dollar Plan
This picturesque view differs dramatically from what you would have seen were it not for the Great Depression.

As lumbering declined in the 1900s, tourism began to boom. Travel writers called Glen Lake the "Switzerland of America." Not one to miss an opportunity, D. H. Day of Glen Haven began planning an exclusive resort on Alligator Hill in the 1920s (see right). He built an 18-hole golf course and cleared land for an airstrip. There were to be tennis courts, bridle paths, a polo field, ski jump, tobaggan slide, and more than 100 estates-"ideally restricted."

Two events altered that fate: Day passed away in 1928 and the stock market crashed a year later. Investors pulled their funding. By the 1940s, state residents and officials were imagining a new use for the land: not a playground for millionaires but a park for us all.

Today, the Alligator Hill Trail network (shown in orange, above) allows you to hike, cross-country ski, or ride a horse down the roads of what was supposed to be "America's premier summer community." Although Day Forest Golf Course stopped operating in 1942, you can still see the fairways through the trees