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7. Naming the Park and Purchasing the Land
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
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As legislation to establish the new park moved closer to passage, two serious complications arose: the name it would be given and acquisition of the land. Each would generate considerable controversy and have political implications both in northern Door County and at the state capitol. Because the legislature had reduced the appropriation for the park to only fifty thousand dollars per year for two years, the State Park Board sought additional funds from other sources. Thomas Brittingham had discussed obtaining matching funds from U.S. Senator Isaac “Uncle Ike” Stephenson when the board and the second delegation of officials visited the park site in . Now the board turned to Stephenson, who was eager to make a sizable donation.1 A wealthy lumber baron and industrialist from Marinette, Stephenson had old friends in Door County where he had worked many years earlier. He began building his fortune by acquiring valuable tracts of wooded land in Michigan and Wisconsin when the Northern Michigan Land Office opened in . He later managed a vast financial empire with interests in mills, railroads , paper, sugar factories, and other industries, before serving three terms in Congress. He was elected to the United States Senate in . In a letter to the Advocate Thomas Reynolds, the park bill’s sponsor, hinted that Door County’s “old friend Stephenson” might provide funding for the park. He pointed out that in Stephenson’s congressional election, Door County residents gave Stephenson an overwhelming majority of more than one thousand votes. “Door County elected him, and he is going to help the county now,” Reynolds claimed.2 Soon the Advocate brought Senator Stephenson and his tentative donation back into the news noting that “when the subject was called to . . . [Stephenson ’s] attention . . . he is said to have denied that he had any intention” of aming the ark and urchasing the and making such a donation, “but offered a site for a park on the headwaters of the Escanaba River, in upper Michigan, at what is known as Thunder Mountain ,” near his home in Escanaba.3 Following up on his offer, Stephenson told Governor Davidson in August of that he would donate not the fifty thousand dollars Brittingham originally requested but twenty-five thousand dollars “if they wish to call it [the park] after me.”4 Davidson replied that he did not have the authority to choose the name of the park, but if it were called Stephenson Park, his name would be perpetuated for generations to come. The senator then sent his written offer of twenty-five thousand dollars to the board, under the condition that the park bear his name. Despite Reynolds’s enthusiastic support, the board unanimously rejected Stephenson’s offer. However, Stephenson again renewed his offer providing that the park be named after him. At their next meeting the board reconsidered and accepted the gift agreeing that the “park shall be named in perpetuity, ‘Stephenson State Park.’”5 Many in Door County opposed naming the park after Stephenson, as did several state newspapers and legislators. Some of the latter were friends of Robert M. La Follette, who eventually became Stephenson’s political adversary. Meanwhile, the Democrat claimed to have originated the name “Peninsula” for the park.6 This name, it said, “would undoubtedly meet with approval by Thomas Reynolds. the people of the state to a far greater extent than naming it after any politician .”7 The Algoma Herald took a similar position, saying that the name of a state institution “should not be allowed to be purchased with money.”8 Even the Milwaukee Daily News commented, pointing out the desirability of “Peninsula Park” because the name described it “geographically as the park is located on the most prominent peninsula within the state.”9 Responding to the controversy and broad support for the name “Peninsula,” Door County’s new assemblyman, Lewis L. Johnson, introduced a bill to name the park accordingly and return Stephenson’s twenty-five-thousand-dollar donation. The bill was passed. The park has also been called a slightly different name, Peninsular. It appears incorrectly on the title of some old postcard scenes and, occasionally, in early literature about the park. This misnomer was revived in the s when, curiously, the Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the park was called Camp Peninsular. Its newspaper was even called the Peninsular Breeze. The second major difficulty in the park’s early progress was purchasing the necessary land. Assuming that the...
