1826 completion of the Erie Canal linked the eastern seaboard with middle America and brought rapid development and growth to the Sleeping Bear area. It was a water highway and docks were built to serve as cord wooding stations for steamers, homesteading immigrants, the lumber industry and vacationers. Today you can still see the lighthouse and life-saving station that served these early sailors. Glenn Haven historic village, a turn of the century lumbering town, may be the best-preserved example of a frontier wooding station and steamboat shop.