“Writer Gives Thoughts on Parks, Stickers” from the June 11, 1959 Door County Advocate
Writer Gives Thoughts on Parks, Stickers
By Joan LeClair
To me, June is the prettiest month of the year that can really be enjoyed. Everything is green and it hasn’t been too hot—up until now. At the moment of writing this the perspiration is flowing freely and the thermometer is rising. Regular tourist weather without the tourists. There are a few here and there but it’s not like July and August. June has just begun and if this hot weather keeps up the tourists will be streaming in to get away from the heat.
Now is the time for all good residents of Door county to get in their cars and do a little exploring, especially those who come in contact with our summer visitors. It is slightly disheartening to have to reply with a blank look and an “I don’t know” to a perfectly innocent query as to where some place is.
Last year I had the unfortunate experience of not being able to tell one interested tourist where Meridian Park is. I’m still looking for it. The park is on the 45th degree latitude or 45th meridian. After inquiring of several different parties who have lived here longer than I, the conclusion was reached that it’s general location is the wayside below a rock ledge north of Jacksonport, south of Baileys Harbor and in the general vicinity of the Jacksonport swamp famous for its wild flowers in the spring and the beauty of many colored leaves in the fall. Until somebody erects a sign saying “Meridian Park” it shall always be a guess that the wayside is the park. Even if it isn’t “the park” it still is a very nice place to have a picnic.
In fact, there are lots of places to have picnics. The state parks namely Potawatomi and Peninsula have many beautiful picnic spots. Incidentally, we won’t have to pay to get into the parks this year. The bill requiring an entrance fee to all state parks in the state died, for this year at least. Not being too well informed on the subject this writer is most certainly no authority on it but what I do know is that the state would require $2 for a sticker to be placed on the windshield, allowing the car to enter any state park in the state. I thought there was a law against cluttering up windshields with stickers. Speaking of stickers— if that one is added to the “Safety Chekd,” city inspected, state inspected, and other licenses plastered on windshields we can assume that today’s wrap around windshields on new cars were not made for better vision on highways but to make room for more stickers.
Pardon me while I get off the subject of getting to know the county better and continue on the subject of park fees. This may or may not be a good thing but one can draw a few conclusions which was done during several short periods reserved exclusively for thinking absurd thoughts. The thoughts began one Sunday afternoon when we drove through Peninsula State park and I wondered what it would be like if we would have to buy a sticker.
Here they are for what they’re worth and if you don’t agree with me write to your congressman—I love to get mail but don’t have time to answer it. Write to your congressman anyway. One small voice chiming in with thousands more can make a pretty loud noise and if everybody from Door county expressed their views, pro or con, there would be a definite settlement of the problem, since we have two state parks in our midst and should know whether we would like it or not.
Both parks in the county take up much acreage and no taxes are paid by anybody on that land. We lose revenue that way, but if the parks were not here the tourists wouldn’t be so thick either, so that argument isn’t so sound. Without tourists almost every business would have to close up shop and then there would be very few who could even pay taxes.
If we knew what the state wanted to do with the money it would also help to develop views. If the county would be able to retain the revenues gained by the entrance fee, would we have enough money on hand to take care of our road building and improve our schools without state aids?
It seems to me that as soon as the State of Wisconsin has anything to say about roads or schools we are forced to construct something much larger and more elaborate and incidentally much more expensive, than we would have done if we were to do it ourselves.
To get back to the stickers. If they’re going to be sold there has to be a place to sell them and if there isn’t a place to sell them they’ll have to build one—costs money. There also has to be someone to sell them—wages. They will also have to have someone to patrol the parks to check on cars to see if anybody sneaked in without buying one—more wages and mileage besides. It would create jobs but who is going to get the jobs?
I really don’t care what they do because we don’t go to the parks very often and if we have to buy one of those stickers we won’t go at all.
Now that we’ve touched on the subject of state parks we’ll move on to another interesting place. Did anyone ever tell you to get lost? A good place to do that is the Clark Lake area. There are so many roads that if you don’t know exactly what you are doing, it is simple to get lost. Getting lost is fun if you start out early enough in the day with a tankful of gas. We’ve been down there for the past two Sunday afternoons and have discovered a new road plus many cottages and camps that we never knew existed. If you keep on driving you could end up on Glidden Drive. If you start out on Glidden Drive you could end up in Jacksonport. You could also go down a dead-end road and end up in the lake.
Another interesting road to travel is in Baileys Harbor—the one the Ridges Sanctuary is on. I have never been to the Ridges but have read a very interesting article on the subject by Clara Hussong. The reason we haven’t been there yet is because we never go riding without the children and it requires courage to take them in the woods. They are small and very quick. The only thing can think of is that they’ll either get lost or else the Ridges would lose some of its precious flowers, so we just ride by. There are many wild flowers along the road side and the private property owners in that area have done some wonderful landscaping.
Since our fish tug is tied at Wenniger’s dock (that’s almost at the end of that road) we go out there quite often.
Between Wenniger’s and the Weborg docks is a huge slab of rock which for many years was under water. Since the water line receded the rock has been exposed. It is quite interesting to look at the imprints. Using the imagination one can conjure up dinosaur foot prints and even follow the tracks. There are many deep crevices and imprints of different forms of vegetation. Not being an archaeologist you couldn’t grove by me that there really are dinosaur prints.
There are many other places in the county to see. Most of them are listed on the fun maps and others you just have to discover for yourself.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
[Shell imprints sometimes resemble footprints.]
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