Wm. C. Sterling State Park

Wm. C. Sterling State Park grew from a narrow sand spit and marsh landscape into a heavily engineered Lake Erie recreation area shaped by industry, storms, public investment, and local effort. In 1928 Newton Steel Company bought 350 acres of former marsh club lands on the north bank of the River Raisin for a steel plant, later the Ford Plant, helping turn the region from a marsh and resort area into an industrial zone and cutting off public access to the lake and beaches. In 1935 the state acquired the original 134 acres for Monroe State Park, leased another 395 acres, adapted the former Yacht Clubhouse into a beach clubhouse, and CCC crews built roads, a campground, changing booths, and toilets. Attendance quickly rose, with 80,000 visitors in 1936 and 226,870 in 1938, and in 1937 the purchase of 150 acres of Lake Erie frontage required that the park be named for Wm. C. Sterling. High water and storms in 1952 destroyed much of the beach, trees, and buildings, including the beach clubhouse, and left the park inaccessible; citizens helped clear debris in 1953, but flooding and swimming restrictions continued for years. From the 1960s into the 2000s, permits, new buildings, a boat ramp, campgrounds, marshland purchases, the lifting of the Lake Erie swim ban, dredging, trails, and major improvement funding steadily remade the park, while construction of an 89-acre Confined Disposal Facility beginning in 1982 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers both stored contaminated dredged sediments and supplied fill for expanding the park's south end. A new 47-acre campground opened in 2003. The park honors William Clark Sterling, born in 1849, a Monroe businessman who founded a cedar pole company in 1880, bought extensive Monroe marshlands, led the Monroe Yacht Club as commodore, promoted tourism and recreation on Lake Erie, operated passenger ships, built jetties, designed channel-clearing rakes, and died in a 1924 car accident; in 1937 land sold to the state required that the park bear his name.

Michigan · United States