Learn about the history of the area through bike, car, horse and wagon tours, and several programs offered by Historic Sleeping Bear, a partner group of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Bike Tours through the Port Oneida Rural Historic District will be offered on Thursday mornings at 9:30 a.m., and Sunday afternoons from 2-4 p.m.
With the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore’s Port Oneida Fair coming up this weekend, folks might notice that the landmark little white schoolhouse just off the junction of M-22 and Port Oneida Road looks better than it did a few years ago.
Mark your calendar for the 2017 Port Oneida Fair at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore where history comes alive at six historic sites. Friday and Saturday, Aug. 11-12, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Port Oneida becomes a lively fun-filled location once again. This two-day event includes rural history demonstrations, activities, and special events each day. The event will end Saturday night with solar viewing and an astronomy party.
Step back in time to 1916 during this year’s Port Oneida Fair to help celebrate the 100th birthday of the National Park Service. History comes alive at six historic sites during the annual Fair at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Friday and Saturday, Aug. 12-13, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. In addition to the many popular demonstrations, animals, and exhibits, the Fair will feature a chicken dinner on Friday, Aug. 12, and end with solar viewing and an astronomy party on Saturday night, Aug. 13. This two-day special event is free. Discover the new presentations and activities for 2016 throughout the Fair. Participants need only purchase the Park Entrance Pass or have an Annual Pass displayed in their vehicle to join in the fun.
Most of the towns and villages in Leelanau County were built up around the lumber business. And Port Oneida, most of it now part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, was no exception. It was first settled in 1852 by Carsten Burfiend, a German immigrant, who traveled with his wife Elizabeth to Buffalo, NY, in 1846. Elizabeth stayed in New York while Carsten went on to work as a fisherman on North Manitou Island. North Manitou had recently been settled by wood dealer Nicolas Pickard and his brother Simeon, who had been in the wooding business in New York. The brothers erected several docks at various locations around the island and began a successful wooding station business, supplying cordwood for fuel to passing steamships traveling from the Erie Canal to Chicago.
The sixth annual Port Oneida Heritage Run on Aug. 1 will traverse the beautiful scenery of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and support Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear (PHSB), in its effort to maintain the Park’s historic resources.
The Port Oneida Community Alliance was formed with the purpose to adaptively reuse the Port Oneida School and Kelderhouse Homestead as a community center and a teaching farm. The vision is to provide hands on opportunities for education, recreation and celebration of historical knowledge, environmental stewardship and sustainable agriculture in order to honor and perpetuate the legacy and community spirit of the resilient and loyal subsistence farmers who called Port Oneida their home.
This summer, the National Park Service (NPS) unveiled its options for the Historic Landscape Management Plan of the Port Oneida Rural Historic District. Some four miles east of Glen Arbor, the shoreline settlement was founded as a logging community, with subsistence (family) farming and fishing, in the early 1860s by immigrant pioneers from Prussia and Hanover (now parts of modern Germany), and lived in continuously until the 1970s. It is defined as a “historic vernacular landscape … that has evolved through use by ordinary people” over a “period of significance of 1870-1945,” in the Plan’s Executive Summary, and it is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
On Saturday, Sept. 3, at 9 a.m., Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear hosts their second annual Port Oneida Barn to Barn Run/Walk – a 5K on the Bayview Trail in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
The Leelanau Scenic Heritage Route Committee, Michigan Department of Transportation, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (National Lakeshore), Traverse Area Recreation and Transportation (TART) Trails, Inc., and Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes are proud to announce that the Federal Highway Administration has awarded two grants towards construction of 3.7 miles of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail (SBHT).