Pierce Stocking (1908 - 1976) spent his youth working as a lumberman in Michigan's forests. In 1948, he bought forest land from D.H. Day south of Glen Haven.

When Pierce Stocking purchased the land at Day Forest Hill there was enough new growth to warrant a selective harvest. The sawmill he set up produced considerable waste that was converted to charcoal in kilns located at the present site of the trailhead for the Alligator Hill hiking trail. This loose, dusty, random-sized material was packed in bags for shipment to stores in much of Michigan for sale to campers and picnickers.

Stocking loved the woods and spent most of his spare time there, developing a self-taught knowledge of nature. He used to walk the bluffs above Lake Michigan, awed by the view of the dunes, Lake Michigan, and the islands. He wanted to share this beauty with others and conceived the idea of a road to the top of the dunes.

The planning for the road began in the early 1960s and in 1967, the road, then known as Sleeping Bear Dunes Park, first opened to the public. Stocking continued to operate the scenic drive until his death in 1976. In 1977, the road became part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Several years later, based on public opinion, the drive was named the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

The GLPG was the first entrance station to Stocking's scenic road up and over the dunes. The national park was created in 1970, the road became part of the park in 1977 and in 1984 the park service moved the entrance to the road and built the observation platforms. The name was later changed to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive in honor of Stocking.

In addition to purchasing admission to the drive at the entrance station in the GLPA, visitors could get out of their cars and eat their picnic lunch, find some shade to cool off in, fill their water jugs, or stretch their legs while walking around flowing pools of water that accurately represented all five Great Lakes. The water would flow doen from Lake Superior via a miniature St. Mary's River into Lakes Huron and Michigan. There even was a foot bridge connecting "Detroit" to Windsor." 

Blacktop paths led up, into, and around the "mitten" we know as Michigan, all the while surrounded by hundreds of different colored rose bushes. There were birch trees planted at strategic locations representing major Michigan cities. Visitors enjoyed the aroma and the beauty of all the roses while getting a mini-geography lesson! It was really a marvelously constructed and maintained American roadside attraction.