Three Hundred ThirtyFifth in the Famous People (FP) Series - Herbert F. Larson
Herbert F. Larson started the idea of the roadside park. History records that the idea goes back to 1918 in the early days of auto touring. Larson was then a history-minded highway engineer just out of the University of Michigan School of Engineering.
The inspiration of the roadside park idea came from a disappointed Sunday outing of a nearby Wisconsin lake country picnic. In 1919 northern Wisconsin lake resorts were growing rapidly. On a particular Sunday of that year, Larson tried to have a cookout with a group of people in Wisconsin. Everywhere they went the property caretaker asked them to not have their picnic on the property and escorted them off the grounds.
He did not want the nearby Upper Peninsula of Michigan to suffer a similar loss of the much-loved pastime of picnicing. This is where he was inspired with the idea of a wide right of way road spot as a roadside park.
One day Larson learned that a particular prominently located parcel of land of uncut virgin woods east of Iron River, Michigan, on U.S. 2 might be up for sale. He went to the landowners with the support of the Iron County board chairman. They then negotiated with the owners and bought it as a forest memorial public woods. This is where he placed his first picnic table for a designated rest spot for the motoring public. There is a possibility this was even the first designated automobile rest area anywhere in the world. It is located at coordinates N 46 06.402 W 088 32.868 in a stand of old-growth hardwood trees. Presently, it has many picnic tables and grills. There are pit toilets provided there today, whereas when it was first introduced it consisted only of a single picnic table.
Larson’s roadside park rest stop idea quickly spread all over the United States in most of the states already by the 1920s. His roadside park idea soon attracted large gatherings and became a trend-setting phenomenon. Now it even has cool geocaches like this one to attact you. This container will certainly help you keep your sulphur tips dry.
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