The Gateway, along with other area resorts, suffered financial reverses in the 1960s. Reasons for the decline in resort properties included the easier accessibility to less rustic, more elegantly modern resort areas in the South and West as well as overseas, the gasoline shortages, and the inability of old resort owners to financially survive rising property values coupled with extremely high interest rates.
When these resorts were developed, most of them grew cabin by cabin as the owners built them up. When these owners came to sell in the 60s and later, property taxes and interest rates had risen so high and resort accommodation rates were so low, that most prospective buyers could not, in the short resort season, come up with a large enough down payment, plus taxes, etc., to make the investment profitable. The older resorts by this time often needed substantial modernization. Many of them, as their owners reached retirement age, were difficult to sell as resorts, and the owners were forced to divide land and cabins. Those resorts which remained and succeeded, such as Sunrise Lodge, on the shores of Lac Vieux Desert, and others, did so by modernizing and marketing.
Originally the town of Land 0' Lakes developed along a north/south line, following the railroad tracks which led from Eagle River, through Watersmeet, MI., and beyond. With the decline in the timber industry, followed by the decline in railroading, and with highways carrying more of the tourist traffic, the downtown area of Land 0' Lakes began to grow in an east/west manner along Highway B.