A couple of girls working at the park did all his laundry, and he said
the general vibe of the park reflected a much different era than is
known today. “It was like one big family then,” he says.
“A lot of the same people came back year after year and we all
knew each other. Everyone would get together around the fire and sing
and talk.”
Tishler paints a picture difficult to imagine. Now Professor Emeritus
of Landscape Architecture at the university, he wrote a book about the
park last year titled Door County’s Emerald Treasure: A History
of Peninsula State Park. He stepped into the middle of that history
when it was a park with few trails and just three general campgrounds
– Nicolet, Welcker’s Point, and Weborg Point – with
no numbered campsites. A time when “reservations were virtually
unheard of,” and the park just wasn’t very crowded.
Try visiting Nicolet on an August afternoon and conjuring up such an
image today. While the idea may strike you as simply absurd, here are
a few images that are absolutely unbearable: Nicolet Bay Condominiums.
Eagle Bluff Estates. The Shores at Weborg Point.
These names might have been staples had history taken a wrong turn,
and it might have. For though it seems implausible today, when talk
of creating a state park between Fish Creek and Ephraim heated up in
1908 and 1909, a number of influential people and publications were
against the proposition.
Wisconsin set up a State Parks Board in 1907, and in the spring of 1908
they convinced renowned, Harvard-educated landscape architect John Nolan
to move from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Wisconsin to determine the
most appealing sites. He would canvass the state before coming back
with four recommendations – Devil’s Lake, Wisconsin Dells,
the Wyalusing area, and Peninsula, which he deemed “pre-eminently
qualified for selection as a State Park.”
The Green Bay Press Gazette came out opposed to it, while the Door County
Advocate expressed reservations, and none other than Door County historian
H.R. Holand, a frequent contributor to the newspaper’s pages,
was vehemently against it. Perhaps most amusing was the unanimous vote
of the Young Men’s Progressive Club of Ephraim that the park “would
not benefit the community.”
Holand owned an orchard in the park and wrote a series of letters appearing
in the Advocate, claiming the park would be ripe for forest fires, a
haven for wolves who would decimate flocks of area sheep, rob the area
of prime land for hotels and cottages, and drain the tax base. In sum,
Holand said the move would so debilitate the area that “the impression
will be so dismal that hundreds of our present annual visitors will
spend their vacation elsewhere.”
Perhaps influenced by Holand, shortsighted resort owners of the time
expressed fears the campground in the park would take away from their
business as well.
Nolan saw things differently.
“Discriminating people, now numbering at least 1,000 a year, have
discovered its charms and become familiar with its attractions,”
Nolan wrote in his report supporting the establishment of Peninsula
State Park. He predicted many more would come to experience the park
and surrounding communities if it were established, but it’s doubtful
he knew quite how prophetic his words would prove to be.
Fortunately, visionary minds like Nolan would prevail in the end. Assemblyman
Thomas Reynolds of Jacksonport stood before the State Assembly in Madison
and delivered a plea for passage of legislation to establish Peninsula,
saying, “Let the State of Wisconsin give to its children this
vast playground, where the old, and tired, and worn may grow young in
spirit and rested in body, nursed by the purity of Nature’s medicine,
and where the young may romp and their bodies grow strong among the
wonders of scenic beauty.”
Nearly a century later the park has become much more than an attraction.
Placing a value on the importance of Peninsula State Park to Door County
is a daunting task, for over the years it has come to mean so much to
so many in terms both personal and economic.
Tom Blackwood, the park’s manager since 1986, for example, came
to Peninsula State Park in 1980 on a six-month training assignment and
has never left. He said the park has served as a first date for many
long-term relationships with the peninsula. “So many people who
now live here or own vacation homes tell me they got their start camping
in the park,” he says. “It’s kind of a magnet. And
a lot of people consider it part of their good lifestyle in Northern
Door.”
The 3,776 unspoiled acres, along with miles of undeveloped bluffs and
shoreline protected inside the boundaries of the park, help define the
towns that bookend it as well. Blackwood illustrates the connection
by asking a simple question: “What would Ephraim or Fish Creek
be without Peninsula State Park?” An Ephraim sunset without the
simple silhouette of Eagle Bluff or the waters of Fish Creek without
the quiet framing of Weborg Point are images appreciators of both would
rather not consider.
Those views are postcards, cherished memories, and the highlight of
many a family photo album. In fact, the creation of the park may very
well be the most important and successful marketing effort Door County
ever embarked on.
In naming its best small-town getaways in the Midwest in April, Midwest
Living magazine gave a nod to the park. First mentioning the many attractions
of the Door Peninsula, the magazine concluded by writing, “Ephraim
and Fish Creek, bookends to Peninsula State Park, epitomize what’s
most appealing,” about the county.
In addition to its natural beauty, Blackwood said it’s the wide
range of amenities that makes Peninsula the jewel of the Wisconsin State
Parks system.
“Name another park that has a lighthouse, a professional theatre,
and a championship golf course,” he asks rhetorically. There are,
of course, none. Those highlights come in addition to landmarks such
as Eagle Tower and its tremendous view; Nicolet Bay, always rated among
the best beaches in the region; 12 miles of great off-road bike trails;
the breathtaking view from Sven’s Bluff; and the fact that it
has more campsites than any other park and is the state’s most
popular camping destination. Only when you consider the complete package
made possible by the topography and location of the park can you begin
to appreciate the astounding vision Nolan displayed in calling for this
precise location.
Today it’s the second-most visited park in Wisconsin, behind Devil’s
Lake in Baraboo, and its management is no easy task. Tishler says he
“never dreamed that tourism would boom the way it has” back
when he was collecting fees five decades ago. Blackwood puts today’s
park operations in perspective, however. “In peak season when
the campground is full, Peninsula is the second largest city in the
county,” he says, estimating the park’s daily population
at 2,000 to 3,000. (Sturgeon Bay, the county’s largest municipality,
has a population of 9,437.) “And they’re all living in extremely
close proximity with no walls or windows, and they pretty much all get
along.”
The park operates like a city as well, with sewer, water, and law enforcement
in the form of rangers patrolling the grounds. Blackwood estimates that
90 percent of compliance with the rules in the park comes through education
and presence, but also through the type of visitor the park attracts.
“People come here as a destination,” he explains. “They’re
not passing through to somewhere else. We have a high quality of visitor
who appreciates the park.”
Blackwood says the 1970s and ‘80s were different, when he saw
more problems and “it got pretty wild at Nicolet with underage
drinking and littering.” But those problems have waned, in part
due to education. “We have a whole generation brought up to think
about littering and pollution,” he says. “We may finally
be reaping the benefits of that.”
But Peninsula, like all Wisconsin parks, is feeling the effects of the
state budget crunch. Arnie Lindauer, Regional Parks Program Supervisor
for the Department of Natural Resources, says the parks are becoming
more revenue-driven every year. He relates the parks used to get 50
percent of their funding from fees and the rest from the state’s
general fund, but the latter has now dropped to about 25 percent. If
it shifts much further he fears it could lead the parks system down
a slippery slope, nudging management away from preservation and toward
a revenue-driven approach.
“If we were faced with a strictly profit motive we might lose
some parks that don’t attract as many visitors,” he comments.
“Philosophically, we [parks supervisors and managers] are concerned
about the balance being compromised.”
Blackwood says the parks would be better served with a stable, designated
source of revenue. “With increased dependence on revenue you’re
more subject to variations in weather and gas prices,” he says.
So far park managers have handled the crunch by cutting staff. Blackwood
says he’s reduced by about 30 percent from a decade ago, mainly
by hiring late in the spring and laying off early in the fall. “But
the problem there is those are the times, in the shoulder seasons when
it’s slower, when you can do the maintenance you need,”
he says.
Lindauer fears another consequence. “People say we should increase
fees,” he says. “But should we follow a strictly Keynesian
approach? Shouldn’t it be affordable for everyone? For a great
deal many people, the parks might be their only real shot at having
a vacation.”
Lindauer says the park system doesn’t have anyone fighting strongly
for it in Madison, despite the economic benefits the parks provide for
the finances of Door County. This point was not lost on tourism consultant
Roger Brooks, who visited the county in July of 2005 to produce a report
on the destination for the then Door County Chamber of Commerce (now
the Door County Visitor Bureau).
In his report, Brooks praised the state parks, but pointed out that
Wisconsin ranks near the bottom of the nation in state park funding.
He urged the bureau and the larger community to begin lobbying on behalf
of park funding, recognizing the impact the county’s five state
parks (Newport, Potawatomi, Whitefish Dunes and Rock Island are the
others) have on bringing in tourism dollars.
But Lindauer says the funding situation is not likely to improve until
things deteriorate to the point where users notice enough to speak up.
In the meantime, he praises the state’s park managers for doing
a “fantastic job of making things work within the budget constraints.”
Already, many of the programs and amenities that make the parks special
are provided by Friends of the Parks groups. These groups raise funds
for grooming equipment, naturalist interns, programming, buildings,
and trails, as well as volunteers to groom trails and care for the park.
“We would be in dire straits without the friends groups,”
Lindauer says.
Lindauer, Blackwood, and Tishler all express the hope that the public
doesn’t let things get to a crisis point, but instead continues
with the foresight displayed in the county’s infancy.
“What we’re celebrating at our centennial in two years is
that those people had a vision a century ago,” Blackwood says.
“We can use Peninsula as a prime example of the need to preserve.
The parks are portraits of what the county used to be.” Portraits
that, like art, are often underappreciated.
“When I grew up I took all of these things for granted,”
Tishler says. “It was not until I went away and came back that
I recognized how incredible it was.” Now, as it does for so many
residents and visitors alike, Peninsula holds a special place in Tishler’s
heart.
“Peninsula was a place where I found myself and my future career,”
he recalls. “And it is a place I wish much of Door County could
have remained to be. We need more places like it.”
