All this year, Oakland County is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its park system.
For County Commissioner Gwen Markham of Novi, the celebration has a personal connection: Her dad, Daniel T. Murphy, helped create the system, along with making other significant changes in the county.
Today the county parks includes more than 7,000 acres of land, which see nearly 2 million visitors annually.
In 2025, the county created community partnerships to add 560 acres to the parks portfolio and another 640 acres are under consideration for new partnerships. By 2030, nearly 75% of the county’s residents will live within three miles of a county park.
“My dad was this young, new guy and politically connected,” Markham said, when he entered politics with a 1956 appointment to the county register of deeds post and later was appointed chairman of the board of auditors, a board that controlled the county budget. He campaigned to get voters to approve the county’s first park millage in 1966. It passed by 51% of the vote.
The next year, Manley Davis donated 169 acres of his family’s homestead in Davisburg to the new parks department. Also in 1967, the county purchased land to create Waterford Oaks County Park.
When county officials decided to create the first county executive in the state, Murphy decided to run for that office.
He won in 1974 and was repeatedly reelected, serving until 1992. Markham had moved away from the area as a young adult and never lived in the county while her dad was the executive, she said.
Murphy remembered for devotion to county
“One of the things he was really proud of is in the 1960s when the county was acquiring all this property and created the parks system,” she said. “Mostly it was parks that already existed or golf courses.’
County parks officials want people to share their memories of a park experience at Facebook.com/OCParks. Learn more about the parks system at OaklandCountyParks.com. Details of the county parks’ birthday bash in July will be announced in the near future.