Courtesy Archives of Michigan

A horse-drawn carriage is shown on Mackinac Island in 1887, during the 20-year period the island was home to a national park.

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By Emily Bingham | ebingham@mlive.com

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MACKINAC ISLAND, MICH. -- Before Yosemite, before the Grand Canyon, before the Smokies and the Everglades and Acadia, there was Mackinac National Park.

It sounds a bit strange to the ear, but it's true: On March 3rd, 1875, three years after Congress established Yellowstone as America's first national park, Mackinac Island officially became the second.

So how did a 3.7-square-mile island in Michigan's Mackinac Straits become one of the country's first national parks, and why isn't it a national park anymore?

The answer has everything to do with one of the island's most historic attractions: Its fort.

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Courtesy the Detroit Public Library Burton Historical Collection

In this early undated photo, soldiers and sailors gather on Fort Mackinac's parade ground.

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By the late 1800's, when the concept of national parks was gaining momentum, much of Mackinac Island was already the property of the U.S. government: Fort Mackinac had been established there in 1780, and while the next century saw the island become increasingly popular as a vacation spot, much of the land was technically considered a military reservation.

So Mackinac-born Senator Thomas Ferry, who wanted to see his beloved island's beauty forever preserved, took advantage of Mackinac's unique circumstances. After Congress approved the creation of Yellowstone in 1872, Ferry introduced legislation to make Mackinac Island a national park -- with the suggestion that the active military personnel already stationed on the island might be its caretakers. The idea was not only novel, but economical -- and it won over Ferry's fellow congressmen. President Ulysses Grant signed the legislation into law three years later, and the fort's commanding officer became the park's first superintendent.

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Courtesy Archives of Michigan

A couple enjoys the view of Lake Huron in Mackinac National Park in 1887.

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For 20 years, Mackinac National Park was a Midwest destination. Fort-stationed soldiers built carriage roads and oversaw park maintenance; Victorian-era vacationers came by steamship to picnic, promenade and marinate in the island's famously clean air.

But because of Mackinac National Park's quasi-military situation -- and also because the National Park Service wasn't established until 1916 -- the park was technically overseen by the War Department, which wasn't keen on writing checks to support decidedly not-related-to-war infrastructure and preservation projects.

So a captain at the fort was given clearance to raise money for park improvements in a unique way: Choice parcels of parkland would be made available for lease to resorters who wanted to build summer cottages on the island. The first cottages built as part of this ingenious revenue plan went up in 1885; the funds from the leased land were used to build trails, improve roads, and even put up an observation tower at Fort Holmes, on the island's highest point.

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Photo via Mackinac State Historic Parks

Arch Rock at Mackinac Island is shown being visited by a group of sightseers circa 1890, in the final years of the national park on the island.

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By the 1890's, however, the War Department decided it didn't make sense to keep military personnel on a Great Lakes island that was no longer of military strategic importance. The fort was decommissioned and the troops were moved elsewhere, leaving no one to care for the park.

The War Department suggested that the parkland be sold off. But everyone who loved Mackinac wouldn't have that.

In September 1895, after a successful lobbying campaign by vacationers and islanders and some folks in D.C., the U.S. government handed over Mackinac Island's parkland and historic fort to the State of Michigan. The state immediately designated it all as Mackinac Island State Park -- Michigan's first state park created prior to the establishment of the state's official park system in 1919.

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Via the Michigan State Archives

A map for the "Island of Michilimackinac" filed with the register of deeds of Mackinac County to show a potential development near the national park that was proposed for the island.

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Today, Mackinac Island State Park includes the 14 historic buildings of Fort Mackinac, plus about 1,800 acres of land -- roughly 80 percent of the island. More than 800,000 visitors come to visit the island each year.

The island's national park chapter has become largely lost to time. But it's interesting to imagine what Mackinac might be like if it would have remained a national park.

"The thing that really spoke to people was the incredible natural beauty of the island," said Lynn Evans, curator of archaeology for Mackinac State Historic Parks. "I don't think it would be radically different [as a national park] because either way it would have been preserved. Mackinac Island managed to have a national reputation without it."

Read on for additional photos from the era around the time when the island was a national park.

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Mackinac State Historic Parks photo

The Sugarloaf, a 75-foot-tall limestone stack, on Mackinac Island is pictured from a day in 1902.

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Photo courtesy Detroit Public Library Burton Historical Collection

A group of men and women atop Arch Rock in 1894.

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Related: See what Mackinac Island looked like a century ago

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Courtesy Detroit Public Library Burton Historical Collection

This photo from 1887 would have been taken shortly after the Grand Hotel's construction was completed.

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Courtesy Detroit Public Library Burton Historical Collection

Another early-days photo of the Grand Hotel, from 1887.

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Related: How the Mackinac Bridge came to be, despite doubt and difficulty

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Courtesy the Detroit Public Library Burton Historical Collection

This "stereocard" photo shows a street labeled Front Street with men standing in front of businesses. Printed on the back of the stereocard is the following caption: "Mackinac National Park, published by J.A. Jenney, Room 20 Merrill Hall, corner Jefferson and Woodward Avenues, Detroit, Mich., publisher of general Michigan stereoscopic views."

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Courtesy Detroit Public Library Burton Historical Collection

Another view of Sugar Loaf Rock, this image was taken by the photographer Plymon B. Green at some point during the island's national park era.

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Mackinac Island documentary aims to go beyond horses and fudge

Behind the scenes at Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel in winter

How a Hollywood star in a swimming pool helped save Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel

How the high-stepping horses of Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel spend their winter vacation

Mackinac Island's tree lighting, Christmas bazaar is steeped in sweet holiday tradition

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