The Tiny Michigan Town That's the 'Magic Capital of the World'

Colon wears the “Magic Capital of the World” nickname with pride. The American Museum of Magic uses the name too, and the town has enough working magic history to make it feel earned.

The story starts in the 1920s, when stage magician Harry Blackstone Sr. used Colon as the summer home for his traveling show. Australian magician Percy Abbott came to visit, married a local woman, and stayed. Abbott and Blackstone briefly ran a company together, then split. Abbott opened the Abbott Magic Company in January 1934; Recil Bordner became his partner that March. The American Museum of Magic says the business quickly grew into the world’s largest manufacturer and retailer of magic equipment; that ranking belongs to the museum’s history, not to an independent record book.

Abbott’s own history dates the first Magic Get-Together to September 15, 1934. The gathering still returns in August for shows, lectures, and the sort of shop talk that only makes sense when a town has spent generations building illusions.

You may also read that Congress formally gave Colon its title. The government record we could verify is narrower: the Congressional Record index shows that Senator Carl Levin made Senate remarks in 1991 for an Abbott’s Magic Get-Together anniversary. That is a senator’s floor tribute, not a congressional designation. The nickname is better understood as Colon’s long-running local identity.

Lakeside Cemetery completes the story. The American Museum of Magic names Harry Blackstone Sr., Harry Blackstone Jr., and museum founder Robert Lund among the magic figures buried there. That is plenty memorable without trying to rank the cemetery against every other one on earth.