The Barritt collection is made up of materials accumulated by either Marjorie or Loren Barritt (or both) primarily relating to their property on what later became Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Smaller series document their involvement in nature and neighborhood preservation in Ann Arbor. The Barritt collection has been arranged into four series: Black Pond, Leslie Homestead Master Planning Committee, Bird Hills/Twining controversy, and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Loren S. and Marjorie Rabe Barritt were long-time homeowners in northeastern Ann Arbor, Michigan.
After moving to Traver Road on Ann Arbor's north side, Marjorie Barritt was involved in two neighborhood actions to preserve Black Pond woods from development. In 1968-1970, the Courtelis Corporation proposed a large apartment development for the Black Pond property; in 1980/81, Dahlmann Associates proposed a development of single family homes. Both efforts were successfully opposed by neighbors and citizens across the city. During a subsequent third attempt at development, citizens were successful in obtaining a grant that enabled the city to purchase the property.
Loren and Marjorie Barritt were neighbors of Eugene and Emily Leslie. When the Leslie's willed their homestead to the city, Marjorie Barritt was asked to become a member of the Leslie Homestead Master Planning Advisory Committee. She served on this committee during 1981 and 1982.
In 1989/90 a thirty-two acre tract of land lying between Newport West Condominium Association and Bird Hills Park was proposed for development. Citizens succeeded in raising money to initiate the city's purchase of the tract.
In August 1967, Loren and Marjorie Barritt purchased a lot on Lake Michigan on Good Harbor Bay, Cleveland Township, Leelanau County, Michigan eight miles from Sleeping Bear Dunes. Shortly after purchase of the property the Barritt's discovered that their lot was in the proposed Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, a national lakeshore first proposed by Senator Philip Hart in 1961. The proposed bill, which was resubmitted many times during the decade of the 1960s but which failed to gain enough congressional support for passage, included a cut-off date provision that provided "that any house or cottage on which construction was begun before December 31, 1964, may remain in private hands in perpetuity, . . ." (Letter from Philip Hart to Marjorie Barritt, September 10, 1968, in "Correspondence and Documents, 1967-1978).
The Barritts built a small cabin in 1969. The 1970 effort to establish Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore succeeded. As part of the first round of land acquisition in 1972, the Barritt's property was appraised and a purchase offer was made that included the possibility of a five-year retention of use period. After briefly exploring the possibility of fighting the government's purchase offer by hiring a condemnation lawyer, the Barritts, who were about to leave the country for a year's sabbatical, sold their property at the government's proposed price.
In the succeeding twenty-five years, the initial five-year retention period was extended, first to ten-years and then to twenty-five, as a result of owners' charges of unequal purchase and retention agreements and through the intervention of congress and/or court cases against the National Park Service. A chronology of these interventions and extensions are listed in a letter to Ron Eckert found in "Correspondence and documents, 1994."
In early 1994, Loren and Marjorie Barritt were contacted by a group of residents of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore who were interested in seeking to extend or modify their lease arrangements from the National Park Service. A large number of leaseholders faced eviction in 1998, with most of the lease holders properties to be vacated by 2010, except for ninety properties that had never been purchased by the Park Service. The group that formed in 1994 as Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Extended Occupancy Rights fought the impending evictions through the fall of 1998 by gathering information about leaseholders, by lobbying Congress individually and with the services of a paid lobbyist, and through publicity in newspapers.
The Barritts were among the large number of leaseholders whose leases expired in 1968. They vacated their cabin at the end of May 1998 and the cabin was bulldozed in August of that year.
