Scenic Drive

The Muskegon County Road Commission constructed Scenic Drive as a scenic byway for auto tourists traveling the West Michigan Pike (US-31). The curving concrete road, with its shade trees and Lake Michigan vista, provided travelers with a picturesque entry into the resort area at White Lake. In 1926 Governor Fred Green noted the importance of road development and auto tourism to the state´s economy, stating: "while Michigan´s lumber trade at its height brought $70 million annually to the state, the tourist and resort traffic today is worth $250 million annually and growing every day." Scenic Drive extended twenty-three miles. This is its highest point. The Great Depression ended plans to build an extension south to Grand Haven.

[Back]: When cutover timberland was slated for sale to a Cleveland foundry for sand mining, Louis Lunsford of the Amazon Knitting Company in Muskegon convinced the county to purchase and protect the site. The county donated the land to the Michigan State Park Commission in 1921, with the understanding that no improvements would be made to the park until a road was built to bring people from Muskegon. In 1926 construction began on a a concrete road that went through the park and was incorporated into Scenic Drive. The Boy Scouts and the Izaak Walton League helped to plant more than twenty thousand pine seedlings in the park. Between 1933 and 1941 the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration made major improvements to the park, constructing buildings, campgrounds, and trails.