A history of fairways and pines on Alligator Hill

Photo courtesy Empire Heritage Museum

By Linda Alice Dewey
Sun contributor

In late October, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore staff began to clear the Alligator Hill trail to prepare it for cross-country ski season. The Aug. 2 storm had dropped hundreds of trees on Alligator Hill, changing the landscape for generations and all but forbidding access to her majestic views. Still, a few committed hikers this fall braved the dense brush and used alternate routes to climb the alligator’s back before the National Park reopened the trail.

Although my friend, Bonnie Gonzales, didn’t quite make it when she tried the first time, she felt it was doable. She wanted to try it one last time before she left for the winter. The trick would be to take the fairways rather than the impassable trail. I was game, so we met at the trailhead entrance by the charcoal ovens one sunny Sunday in mid-October.

Note to self: a little knowledge can be dangerous.

The initial portion of the trail was clear, but at the first sight of downed trees ahead, we cut over to the open fairway on our right. Bonnie knew at was Fairway #1, which impressed me. Only Fairways #1 and 18 were free of trees any more, she said. The rest had long ago been filled in with pines.

A summer person in the ’60s, Bonnie had an intimate history with those pre-pine fairways. “We had this old 53’ Plymouth that stayed at Glen Lake,” she writes. “My mom would drive to the top of Alligator Hill, let us climb the water tower, then rip over the fairways like a roller coaster ride on the way down. Big fun!!!” But then she writes, “The day we found little pines covering the fairways was a bleak one… Many memories were made on that hill. Many!!!”

A little history sleuthing with Dave Taghon at the Empire Heritage Museum reveals that, back in 1907, David Henry “D. H.” Day, after logging Alligator Hill, re-planted it before reforestation was even conceived by anyone else. Twenty years later, the trees — some hemlock and pine but mostly oak, ash, cherry, linden and maple — had matured, according to a 1927 article from the Grand Rapids Herald in the museum’s archives. The article explains that Day, proudly referred to as “King David,” sold 1,400 acres — including Alligator Hill — to a development company, American Park Builders out of Chicago, which spawned a grandiose plan for the area named “Day Forest Estates.”

A promotion booklet describes the location: “It borders on Michigan’s most scenic resort highway, M-22, has boat service directly to Chicago over night [sic] and will be available by any type of air transportation … Glen lake [sic] has been declared by writers in The Saturday Evening Post and National Geographic Magazine to be America’s most beautiful lake, although that statement is often challenged.” An extract from the May 1928 “Michigan Property Owner” printed in the brochure says, “Day Forest Estates was selected by the developers as the most attractive spot in America” and would be divided into “120 estates of five to thirty-five acres each.”

The company built 12 miles of roads with seven fieldstone entrances. A brochure in the museum archives assures potential buyers that the new development would include a beach and tennis club, bathing and boating pavilions, a polo field, a toboggan slide and ski jump for winter sports, and an “aviation field modern in every detail … Electricity, direct telephone and telegraph service and all other modern necessities of life will be provided.”

In 1928, the golf course opened with the promised clubhouse slated for completion by the Summer of ’29, but the Depression swept away the rest of those dreams. The golf course, however, continued to operate. My father, a student at the Leelanau School for a short time, played the course in 1937. Jim Dorsey, now 90, served as a part-time caddy in the early ’40s when he was in high school. Dorsey says that the full-time caddies included Eugene Richardson, Jack Rader (“the caddy master”), Lester Tobin, Walter Tobin, Martin “Beater” Egeler (a baseball pitcher), Gil Warnes, and possibly James Richardson.

Of the course itself Dorsey says, “It was pretty tough, quite hilly, [with] no powered golf carts. I don’t think there were even walking golf carts. It was all carried, and we got paid maybe a dollar for a round of 18 holes.” The caddies wore no special uniforms — “just your street clothes.”

According to a 1950 Leelanau Enterprise article, the Chicago firm closed the course in 1942 after spending a half million dollars on Day Forest Estates and sold everything to the Theron Goodspeed estate in Grand Rapids.

Enter one Pierce Stocking, whom the article describes as a “Cadillac lumberman and cabin camp operator.” Stocking paid $100,000 for 1,700 acres in 1948. His intention to log Alligator Hill a second time prompted concern among townspeople who feared “that destruction of the forest will be a blow to the entire region” the article explains. “The tall pines are visible for miles around Glen Lake and from Lake Michigan and are partly responsible for the county’s boast that Glen is ‘the third most beautiful lake in the world.’”

Mr. Stocking proceeded to log the hill. Then, seeing government surveyors in the area, he sensed something was up and bought as much land as he could, though he did sell some property on the shore of Sleeping Bear Bay. My grandfather bought several of those lots in 1950 for $100 per frontage foot. The home in which I live sits on that land.

Bonnie and I tackled our first tangle of trees just past the end of Fairway #1. We got across all right, but then there were more. We became very warm, and the bugs swarmed. I learned to scooch onto a high horizontal log, lean over and plant my walking poles on the far side for balance like a four-legged animal, then slide across. Careful of my rolling ankles as we treaded the downed branches, I was aware that my osteoporosis-ridden wrists would not have withstood a serious fall.

Several times we got turned around, but a man-made ditch running down the hillside straightened us out. It had been dug for the water line that ran from the tower to the fairways, Bonnie said. Mr. Dorsey confirms that but says it was for the greens. At the end of the 16th green, down by the charcoal ovens, he says, “The hose, when the water got down there, if it got away from you, it was so powerful, it was like a snake.”

He heard stories of other caddies climbing the water tower on a hot day, then going down the inside ladder for a swim. Although he never did that, he did climb the tower once. “It was a scarey climb,” he admits, but there was a “tremendous view from the top of the water tower.”

“The water tower was magical,” writes Bonnie. “That was another bleak day,” she adds, “driving to the water tower and finding an old rusty heap lying on the ground. These events marked the end of an era.”

On this day, that ditch was a godsend. We knew it would lead us to the tower site just south of the lookout. But staying with it was impossible. Tree falls forced us to detour more than once.

At several points, I felt we should turn back. Then Bonnie figured out where we were. Every time we came to a stand of pines, she knew which fairway we were on and which way to go. Those pines had not come down like other types of trees with more leafy foliage, and we breezed through them every time. “The pines are our friends!” she exclaimed to the treetops.

Only twice was Bonnie really stumped, and we resorted to my phone. How amazing to see an aerial Google Earth photo pinpointing our exact location on Google Maps! We could even see the filled-in fairways because of their unusual texture.

We reached the top two hours after we began, hooting and hollering. After climbing over more trees in front of the bench, we stood at the apex, looking out.

It was breathtaking. Say what you will about all those downed trees, we could see much farther back on the dunes than even those 1927 brochure photos show.

We took a selfie with a tree behind us that Bonnie said is “historic,” its battered branches stripped and broken, but standing nonetheless.

Crews are clearing the trail now. That’s a good thing, but I have to say I’m happy we made it before it was cleared. On the other hand, it was probably not the smartest move I ever made.

Linda Alice Dewey is the author of Aaron’s Crossing and The Ghost Who Would Not Die.