First Roadside Marker
Posted by: 
Team Rumble
N 46° 06.390 W 088° 32.867
16T E 380382 N 5107044
First Roadside Park
Waymark Code: WMC8TB
Location: Michigan, United States
Date Posted: 08/09/2011
Views: 20
In 1918 the Iron County Board of Supervisors approved the recommendation of the road commission, through its engineer-manager, Herbert F. Larson, to purchase this 320-acre tract of roadside virgin timber and to dedicate it as a forest preserve. The following year Iron County established Michigan's first roadside park and picnic tables. This was quite likely America's first such facility. Since then similar parks have been provided by most states for the comfort and enjoyment of the traveling motorist.
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. He came back to Iron County where he grew up to manage the highway department. 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.
Larson’s roadside park rest stop idea quickly spread all over the United States in most of the states already by the 1920s.
Parking nearby?: yes
D/T ratings: 
Registered Site #: S0213
Historical Date: Not listed
Historical Name: Not listed
Description: Not listed
website: Not listed
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