National lakeshores are part of a system of United States coastlines administered by the National Park Service and preserved for their scenic, recreational, and habitat resources. The national lakeshore system is an extension of the national seashores system established in the 1930s to preserve the nation's dwindling patches of publicly-owned coastline on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts. Since before 1930 the movement to preserve both seashores and lakeshores has been a conservationist response to the rapid privatization of coastlines by industrial interests and private home owners. In 1992 the United States had four designated National Lakeshores: Indiana Dunes on the southern tip of Lake Michigan, Sleeping Bear Dunes on Lake Michigan's eastern shore, and the Apostle Islands and Pictured Rocks, both on Lake Superior's southern shore.

Attention focused on disappearing Great Lakes shorelines, sometimes called the United States' "fourth coastline," as midwestern development pressures increased after World...