Magee Marsh is more than 2,000 acres of pristine wetlands that once formed part of a 300,000-acre coastal wetland along the western shores of Lake Erie. In 1612, Etienne Brule and his French voyagers landed on a tributary just east of Magee Marsh on November 1, All Saints Day, and Brule named the stream Toussaint Creek in honor of the day. During the 1700s, French settlers lived here in bark huts hunting and trapping and cleared very little land. In the 1800s, German immigrants arrived in the region and began clearing and draining the marsh for agriculture. By the early 1900s, most of the 300,000-acre coastal wetland on the shores of Lake Erie had been drained. In 1903, John Magee purchased 2,700 acres in this area intending to drain it for farming, but attempts to drain it were unsuccessful. In the 1920s, the Magee family decided to manage the marsh for duck hunting and muskrat trapping. By the mid-1900s, about 30,000 acres of marshland remained along Lake Erie from Toledo to Sandusky because private duck hunting clubs preserved it, and this area became known throughout the Midwest as a premier waterfowling area. In 1951, the Division of Wildlife purchased 2,000 acres from the Magee Marsh Hunt Club, and Magee Marsh Wildlife Area was established with funds from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program. From the 1960s to the present day, the Division has continued to provide quality, controlled waterfowl hunts there. In the 1980s, biologists at Magee Marsh coordinated a bald eagle restoration project that allowed the species to recover, and today Magee Marsh is known as a top birding destination for spring warbler migration.