The swinging bridge and the sugar factory

Croswell has two things going for it that you won’t find together anywhere else. The first is the Swinging Bridge — a cable-and-plank suspension footbridge over the Black River, built in 1905 with cables donated by the local sugar company so workers could get across to the mill. It sways as you walk it (kids love it; some adults less so), it’s the longest suspension footbridge in Michigan, and a sign at one end famously reads “Be Good To Your Mother-in-Law.” It’s the centerpiece of the town’s Swinging Bridge Festival each summer.

The second is the sugar itself. Croswell is a Michigan Sugar Company town — its beet-processing factory, running under the Pioneer Sugar name, is one of four in the region and a major local employer. Like the other sugar towns in the Thumb, Croswell takes on a distinct smell during the fall processing season, when the beets are coming in. It’s the price of admission for living in sugar-beet country, and most folks here barely notice it anymore.