Bufka, Kropp, Eitzen Agricultural District: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Regions 3, 4, & 5 Park Cultural Landscapes Program

Inventory Unit Description: The Bufka, Kropp, Eitzen Agricultural District is located in the northern portion of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (SLBE), a unit of the National Park Service. SLBE lies in the northwest portion of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula in Leelanau County. The District lies at the northern most boundary of the national park and includes a portion of a proposed wilderness area. Three farms and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and Cemetery located on Michigan Highway 22 near Good Harbor Bay form the agricultural district (the District). The District is approximately 352 contiguous acres, all that remains of the 518 acres adjacent to Lake Michigan originally settled in the 1870s by the Bufka, Kropp, and Eitzen families. The District includes the three family farms, consisting of four farmsteads with associated buildings and structures; historic circulation patterns and spatial relationships; vegetation including open fields, woodland areas, remnant domestic vegetation, and grazing land; and small scale features. The region is noted historically for its mix of Northern European ethnic groups that settled in the area and the farms they established—a combination of “general” farms (primarily subsistence, producing crops such as hay, corn, and potatoes), small-scale dairy operations, and larger fruit-growing farms, particularly apple and cherry orchards. Many farms, such as those in the District, found a balance between growing crops for income and more modest subsistence-level farming. Physically and socially, the farms and the families formed a small community. Although the proximity of the farms is readily apparent, less obvious are the social ties that are also important to the shaping of the landscape. The interaction between families within agricultural activities such as harvesting crops, resulted in a consistency of broad scale patterns as well as small-scale features present in the landscape. These patterns and features help characterize the District as a unified historic landscape. The Bufka, Kropp, Eitzen Agricultural District retains integrity as a rural vernacular landscape. In addition to the extant significant buildings and structures, the overall spatial organization, remnant open fields, domestic vegetation, small-scale features related to agricultural operations, and associated rural setting all reinforce the vernacular character of the cultural landscape of the District. The cultural landscape retains integrity of location, setting, feeling, and association among the farms. The aspects of design, materials and workmanship have diminished due to the cumulative loss of buildings and structures and the transition of active, tilled farm fields to pine plantations or abandoned fields in various stages of succession. The District as a whole represents a significant and distinguishable entity related to local agricultural history. As a group, these farms possess significantly related buildings, structures, associated landscape features, and agricultural land that are united by physical development and historic agricultural context.

Bufka, Kropp, Eitzen Agricultural District: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

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