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Brockway Mountain Drive is an 8.8-mile-long (14.2 km) scenic roadway just west of Copper Harbor in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the United States. Drivers can access the road from State Highway M-26 on either end near Eagle Harbor to the west or Copper Harbor to the east in the Keweenaw Peninsula. The drive runs along the ridge of Brockway Mountain on the Keweenaw Fault and climbs to 1,320 feet (402 m) above sea level, 720 feet (219 m) above the surface of Lake Superior. Several viewpoints along the route allow for panoramas of Copper Harbor, Lake Superior, and undeveloped woodland. On a clear day, Isle Royale is visible approximately 50 miles (80 km) in distance from the top of the mountain. Brockway Mountain was named for Daniel D. Brockway, one of the pioneer residents of the area. The road was constructed by the county road commission with funding through Depression-era work programs in 1933. It was briefly used as a connection for the parallel state highway after it opened. Since it opened, Brockway Mountain Drive has been recognized nationally and locally in several media outlets for its picturesque qualities, usually in profiles of Keweenaw County, the Upper Peninsula or other scenic drives. Route description The road can be accessed from either Eagle Harbor or Copper Harbor and serves as a scenic loop off M-26. The western end starts at M-26 near Lake Bailey and Agate Harbor. Brockway Mountain Drive ascends along the ridgeline of the Keweenaw Fault. Immediately south of the road, Upson Creek runs parallel to the cliff face as it drains Lake Upson. Two and a half miles (4.0 km) from the western end, there is a parking area for the Oren Krumm Trail, part of the Brockway Mountain Audubon Sanctuary. The drive is lined with low stone walls, built as part of the original construction of the roadway. The roadway lacks markings, and its condition has been described as "deteriorat[ed], probably due to harsh weather" by travel writers. Upon reaching the top of the mountain, drivers are greeted with a full panoramic view of the surrounding area, allowing views of Lake Superior, Copper Harbor, Eagle Harbor and the surrounding lakes and forests. Freighters occasionally can be seen traversing Lake Superior, and on clear days Isle Royale can be spotted nearly 50 miles (80 km) in the distance. Continuing eastward, the drive descends down the mountain toward Copper Harbor. The roadway twists and turns as it alternately climbs and descends several smaller hills along the ridgeline. Along the drive, several viewpoints provide the opportunity to pull off and take in the surroundings. A few of them lie directly adjacent to the face of the bluff where the mountain quickly rises from the surrounding land. Near the eastern end, there are two sharp hairpin turns, the first of which has a scenic overlook and parking area. This spot overlooks Copper Harbor and the nearby Copper Country Trail National Scenic Byway portion of US Highway 41 (US 41) just to the east. From here, the road makes its steep descent down from the ridge, through the second turn and ends at M-26 on the western edge of town. This road is one of the highest scenic roadways above sea level in the US between the Rocky and Allegheny mountains. During the winter, Brockway Mountain Drive is closed to cars as the Keweenaw County Road Commission does not plow the road; instead the drive is used as a snowmobile trail. According to the commission, 200 vehicles per day use the roadway on average. There are no posted speed limits along the roadway, however in the words of a former Keweenaw County Sheriff's Department deputy, "the nature and design of the road was such that the 'problem' of people driving too fast ... was basically 'self-correcting'." History Brockway Mountain is a 1,320-foot-tall (400 m) volcanic landform on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan about five miles (8.0 km) west of Copper Harbor. The top of the mountain is 720 feet (219 m) above the level of Lake Superior. The peak was named for Daniel D. Brockway, local pioneer settler, postmaster and state road commissioner. Brockway moved to Copper Harbor in 1846 at the beginning of the area's copper boom. He built the first permanent structure in the community, a hostelry named The Brockway House, which was used by the miners and scientists in the area. By the time of his death on May 9, 1899, the ridge west of town had been named in his honor. A road to the summit of Brockway Mountain was first proposed in the 1920s by Warren H. Manning, a renowned landscape architect. Manning was in the Keweenaw at the time to design Agassiz Park in Calumet and suggested the road while visiting the area. The road was designed in 1932 with three different options considered. The first involved the construction of the current road from near the Silver River on the west to the summit. It followed a route used by the previous Military Road that connected Fort Wilkins to Fort Howard; traffic would have to turn around to descend Brockway Mountain. Another option included a route from the summit southwest across the Upson Creek Valley to a second summit on the nearby Mount Lookout, a total of about 16 miles (26 km). The third option was that of the current route down the mountain to the west. Construction of Brockway Mountain Drive began in early 1933 by the Keweenaw County Road Commission with federal highway funding designed to provide meaningful work to the many copper miners who became unemployed during the Great Depression. Rather than provide welfare, the government provided work for the jobless. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was the agency on the federal level responsible for the project. Up to 300 laborers were employed for a wage of 25¢/hr (equivalent to $5.88/hr in 2023). The work required to build the road was carried out by manual labor, with the assistance of a team of horses, in a project designed to maximize the numbers of men employed. The grading and leveling of the road surface was done by hand; no survey instruments were used to level the roadway. The road was opened for public use that October 14, at a preliminary cost of $30,000 (equivalent to $561,000 in 2023). That same year, the Skytop Inn opened on top of the mountain. During 1934, additional work was done to the roadway to build the stone walls. Motorists were restricted to one-way traffic, and the road was only open to the public on Sundays and holidays. In the interim, the road was temporarily used as a connection between completed segments of the parallel state highway, numbered M-129 at the time. This highway, now part of M-26, was built starting in July 1933 but was not completed through the area until October 1934. The KCRC declared the road initially finished on June 14, 1935, at a cost of $40,000 (equivalent to $700,000 in 2023) According to historian LeRoy Barnett, "this county highway quickly became one of the most popular motoring destinations in the Midwest." The Ir.... Discover the Kathy Jo Wargin popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Kathy Jo Wargin books.