Detroit's hardest-won landmark: the island the city refused to lose through the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Now America's second most-visited state park, held in common against a billion-dollar offer to buy it.
Slow it down here, friend. Out past the channel sits the Detroit mainland — the city itself. A dozen years ago, that city went broke. In twenty thirteen Detroit filed the biggest municipal bankruptcy in American history, and this island, already worn thin by decades of a stretched-tight budget, could have been one of the things it lost. Instead the city and the state cut a deal — and pay attention, because it was not a sale. Detroit still owns Belle Isle. What they signed was a thirty-year lease that made this Michigan's newest state park in twenty fourteen, with a modest vehicle passport to help pay the way; walkers and bikers still get on free. The state has poured a fortune in since — the DNR puts it past one hundred seventy-eight million dollars by twenty twenty-six — and the volunteers of the Conservancy had already saved the old aquarium back in twenty twelve. Now here's the line to carry home. Today Belle Isle is the most-visited state park in Michigan, and the second most-visited in the entire United States — behind only Niagara Falls State Park, the very first state park in America, the one Olmsted helped set free. The same designer. The same idea. The top two most-loved state parks in the country — and Detroit refused to give this one up, even turning down a billion-dollar offer to privatize it this very year. It stays held in common. Let me hand it to Boone for the last word. When he's done: if today earned it, leave us a review on Viator — it's how a small ranger outfit keeps making these — and bring your family back to see it again. The bridge home is just ahead off the west end. Safe travels, friend.
