Drive-by history

Thanks to “Vintage Views Along Scenic M-22 Including Sleeping Bear Dunes” — a new book by authors M. Christine Byron and Thomas R. Wilson, both of East Grand Rapids — you can take the trip from the comfort of your easy chair.

“It’s been a popular destination for more than 100 years,” said Byron, a former local history librarian with the Grand Rapids Public Library.

The 248-page book uses vintage postcards, photographs and advertising ephemera to take readers on a trip back in time. A time when the drive was slower and less commercial. Wilson said that the postcards, which are used to show the route’s various roadside attractions, are the foundation of the book.

“Postcards coincide with the invention of automobiles,” he said. “They are really the Twitter of their day.”

Both Wilson and Byron are collectors of old postcards, with more than 25,000 in their combined collections.

The couple has used its extensive postcard collection as the basis for four other travel books on Michigan, including “Vintage Views Along the West Michigan Pike,” which won both a Michigan Notable Book Award and a Historical Society of Michigan Award in 2012.

It was the success of their book on Leelanau County, however, which spurred the duo to make the M-22 book. The Leelanau book went out of print, and when the printing house was sold it resulted in the loss of the book’s digital files. Rather than recreate that book, the duo decided the M-22 book would take its place.

The new book starts with M-22’s roots in Native American footpaths and follows its development and construction from rutted roads to the modern, 120-mile concrete highway.

The book gives armchair travelers a good look at the route, which runs from Manistee to Traverse City, passing through villages with names like Arcadia, Empire and Northport that harken back to a slower time.

Along the way, the book stakes out an interesting history of travel in Michigan, including popular tourist destinations like the “mystifying forces of gravity” site of Glen Magic and Lund’s Scenic Garden in Maple City.

At its peak in the mid-20th century, Byron said, the garden would get 10,000 visitors during the summer.

“It was a very big deal,” she said.

The garden, which opened in 1948 and closed in 1987, included life-size painted scenes from the life of Christ. Travel and food authors Jane and Michael Stern compared the style of the works to that of Henri Rousseau, “but with a religious theme.”

Lansingites will appreciate the section on the Dunesmobile experience — beaches where tourists could ride in roomy Oldsmobile convertibles across the dunes, flying up to 60 miles an hour. This practice was curtailed due to environmental concerns when the area received National Park status in 1978.

One striking postcard shows a fleet of new 1956 Olds Super 88 convertibles outside Frank Paulos’ Oldsmobile dealership in Traverse City.

The book also delights readers with its look back on the many lodging and dining sites that once dotted the route. The photos will have your mouth watering for a malt at the Open Hearth Fountain and Grill’s soda counter or a meal at the scenic Willow Brook Inn, which, according to an ad, was “among the big willows and on the banks of a tumbling stream.” Both legendary stops in Northport are closed.

Many photos advertise the tiny one room cottages, some with “free TV” signs out front, that offered respite for travelers along the route.

Byron and Wilson also do a great job of selecting messages from postcards to illustrate the trip. One postcard, sent from a bookstore in Omena, reads, “We were at a bookstore at Omena and we had a feast of books.”

The book also includes some rarely seen images of early Peshawbestown, a Catholic mission turned Native American Reservation and home of the Leelanau Sands Casino.

The popularity of M-22 has been no accident. There have been four different tourist associations promoting the route, Byron said, beginning in 1913 with the West Michigan Lake Shore Highway Association. Many of the book’s illustrations are drawn from promotional pieces generated by these associations. One refers to Michigan’s dunes as “the Michigan Sahara.”

One site that both Wilson and Byron recommend is the scenic turnout at Arcadia.

“It’s as it was back then,” Wilson said.

In the book’s preface, Byron and Wilson offer one piece of advice for travelers: “Don’t forget to send a postcard to folks back home.”

“Vintage Views Along Scenic M-22”

Author presentation 7 p.m. Thursday, July 30 FREE East Lansing Public Library 950 Abbot Road, East Lansing (517) 351-2420, elpl.org