Topic
History & Culture
Michigan has stories you won't find anywhere else — shipwrecks that became songs, a sound that started in Detroit, a war fought over Toledo. Pull up a chair for the history and culture of the Great Lakes State.
From the Porch
Notes from this topic.
Porch Note
A short history of Mackinac Island
Mackinac Island's story runs from Anishinaabe sacred ground to Fort Mackinac, Victorian cottages, the Grand Hotel, and island fudge.
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Algonac, the birthplace of Chris-Craft
Algonac is the birthplace of Chris-Craft and a cradle of American powerboating, with Christopher Columbus Smith and Gar Wood both tied to the river town.
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Atlanta, the Elk Capital of Michigan
Atlanta calls itself the Elk Capital of Michigan, near the Pigeon River Country elk herd and its long comeback story.
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Cement City and the Besser block
Alpena's cement industry and Jesse Besser's concrete-block machine helped shape construction far beyond northeast Michigan.
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Cheboygan and the Coast Guard icebreaker Mackinaw
Cheboygan is home port for the USCGC Mackinaw, the Coast Guard's heavy Great Lakes icebreaker.
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Dinosaur Gardens in Ossineke
Dinosaur Gardens is a classic Ossineke roadside attraction, with concrete dinosaurs sculpted by Paul Domke beginning in the 1930s.
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Dousman's Mill (the old Historic Mill Creek)
Dousman's Mill preserves the old Historic Mill Creek sawmill site, one of the oldest industrial places in the Great Lakes.
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Empire: Gateway Village to Sleeping Bear Dunes
Empire sits at the entrance to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore — a small village that outlasted the logging era and now anchors one of Michigan's most-visited parks.
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Empire's Asparagus Festival
Every June, Empire's Chamber of Commerce fills downtown with an asparagus-themed street festival — a fun run, recipe contest, local food and drink, live music, and a community poetry contest.
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Fort Gratiot, Michigan's oldest lighthouse
Port Huron's Fort Gratiot Light is Michigan's oldest lighthouse, still marking the mouth of the St. Clair River.
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Fremont: the home of Gerber baby food
Fremont is the birthplace and headquarters of Gerber, the baby food company that grew from a local cannery into a national brand.
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Glen Arbor, Glen Haven, and Sleeping Bear Dunes
Glen Arbor sits at the M-22 and M-109 junction at the edge of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, where Glen Haven's historic buildings — including D.H. Day's once-multipurpose general store — are still open to visit inside the park.
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Hart and the asparagus capital of the world
Hart celebrates Oceana County's asparagus country with the National Asparagus Festival each June.
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Hillman, Brush Creek, and the lumber days
Hillman began as Brush Creek, a lumber-era village on the Thunder Bay River that later settled into farming and small-town life.
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How Baldwin stole the county seat
Lake County's county seat moved from Chase to Baldwin after a local county-seat fight and a legendary raid on the county records.
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How Montmorency County got its name
Montmorency County was first named for Ojibwe Chief Cheonoquet before the state changed it to a French-Canadian family name.
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Leelanau's History, Collected and Kept in Leland
The Leelanau Historical Society Museum holds more than 20,000 items — from Anishinaabek arts to Great Lakes shipwrecks — and a deep newspaper archive going back to 1858.
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Marine City, the town that built ships
Marine City was one of the great nineteenth-century wooden shipbuilding towns of the Great Lakes.
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Marysville and the Wills Sainte Claire
Marysville was shaped by C. Harold Wills and the rare Wills Sainte Claire automobile.
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Pentwater, the harbor village
Pentwater grew from Charles Mears' lumber harbor into a walkable Lake Michigan resort village at the channel from Pentwater Lake.
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Port Oneida: A Farming Village Frozen in Time
The Port Oneida Rural Historic District preserves more than 3,400 acres of intact farm landscape from an 1860s German immigrant community, now protected inside Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
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Posen, "Little Poland," and the Potato Festival
Posen's Polish roots and long-running Potato Festival give this small Presque Isle village one of northeast Michigan's best-known local traditions.
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Rogers City and the world's largest limestone quarry
Rogers City is tied to the vast Calcite limestone quarry, a Lake Huron industrial landmark and long-running local employer.
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Rothbury and the Electric Forest
Rothbury is the quiet Oceana County village beside the Double JJ Resort, where Electric Forest brings tens of thousands of festivalgoers each June.
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St. Ignace, one of Michigan's oldest towns
St. Ignace's 1671 Father Marquette mission anchors one of Michigan's oldest settlement stories at the Straits of Mackinac.
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The Cross in the Woods
Indian River's Cross in the Woods is a national Catholic shrine built around a huge redwood cross and bronze figure of Christ.
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The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians
The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians has roots in the Grand Traverse region going back to the 1830s; after two earlier denials, the federal government formally re-recognized the tribe on May 27, 1980.
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The great dams of the Muskegon River
Hardy and Croton dams turned the Muskegon River into a power source and still shape Newaygo County's river country.
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The little town that steered the world
Onaway once made wooden steering wheels for the auto industry, a boom remembered today in Awakon Park and the old courthouse downtown.
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The Mackinac Bridge, gateway to the U.P.
St. Ignace sits at the Upper Peninsula end of the Mackinac Bridge, the Mighty Mac gateway across the Straits.
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The Presque Isle lighthouses and the old harbor
Presque Isle Township's namesake peninsula has a historic Lake Huron harbor, two museum lighthouses, and one of the prettiest shoreline communities in the county.
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The Shrine of the Pines
The Shrine of the Pines near Baldwin preserves Raymond Overholzer's hand-built furniture made from white pine stumps and roots.
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The Sno*Drift Rally
The Sno*Drift Rally turns Montmorency County's winter forest roads into one of the toughest stops on the national rally calendar.
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The town that grew gemstones
Shelby was home to the Shelby Gem Factory, where synthetic gemstones were grown, cut, and shipped around the world for half a century.
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Thomas Edison grew up here
Thomas Edison spent his boyhood in Port Huron, selling newspapers on the railroad and experimenting in a baggage car.
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Thunder Bay and the shipwreck sanctuary
Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary protects Lake Huron shipwrecks off Alpena, with museum and glass-bottom-boat access from downtown.
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Yale, the Bologna Capital
Yale is known as the Bologna Capital, thanks to C. Roy's Yale Bologna and the town's annual festival.
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Buckley and the Old Engine Show
Buckley swells each August for one of the country's biggest antique-engine and tractor shows.
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Cadillac's two lakes and the canal that built the town
Cadillac grew between Lake Cadillac and Lake Mitchell after George Mitchell's Clam Lake Canal connected lumber, mills, and the railroad.
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Falmouth: the town that almost kept the county seat
Falmouth briefly held Missaukee County's courthouse before the seat moved to the settlement that became Lake City.
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Hamlin Lake and the town that washed away
Hamlin Lake is Michigan's largest man-made lake, shaped by lumber dams and the lost town of Hamlin on the Big Sable River.
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Harrietta and the birthplace of Michigan's brown trout
Harrietta is known for Michigan's oldest operating state fish hatchery and its long brown-trout story.
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Idlewild: the Black Eden of Michigan
Idlewild in Yates Township was one of the nation's most important Black resort communities before the Civil Rights Act opened other vacation places.
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Jennings: the lumber town that all but disappeared
Jennings was once a busy Missaukee lumber town on Crooked Lake, then many of its houses moved away with the mills.
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Lake City: Michigan's Christmas Tree Capital
Lake City grew from lumber to Lake Missaukee resort life and then into Michigan's Christmas Tree Capital.
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Ludington and the great car ferries of Lake Michigan
Ludington's harbor is still home to the S.S. Badger, the last coal-fired passenger steamship in the United States.
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Manton: the town that lost the county seat in a raid
Manton briefly held the Wexford County seat before Cadillac seized the county records in the wild 1882 Battle of Manton.
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McBain: a Dutch farm town with a Rambler streak
McBain grew from a sawmill settlement into Missaukee County's Dutch-rooted farm town.
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Mesick, the Mushroom Capital
Mesick calls itself the Mushroom Capital of the United States and celebrates morel season with a spring festival rooted in its logging-town past.
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Reeder Township and the family that named it
Reeder Township keeps the name of one of Missaukee County's first settler families, even after Reeder became Lake City.
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The giant battery on the lakeshore: Ludington's Pumped Storage Plant
South of Ludington, the pumped storage plant works like a giant battery, moving Lake Michigan water uphill and back down to support the electric grid.
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The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians and Mason County
The 1855 reservation tied the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians to Custer and Eden townships, where Indian Town stood near the Pere Marquette River.
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The Pere Marquette name and Father Marquette
Around Ludington, the Pere Marquette name points back to Father Jacques Marquette and a long-debated Lake Michigan death-site tradition.
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The world-famous Scottville Clown Band
Scottville's long-running Clown Band has brought its joyful, noisy parade act to Michigan festivals for generations.
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Frankfort and Elberta
Frankfort and Elberta share Benzie's Lake Michigan harbor, beach-town life, and a railroad car-ferry past.
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Honor, Lake Ann, and the Platte River country
Honor, Lake Ann, the Platte River, and inland lake country anchor north-central Benzie County.
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Interlochen
Interlochen brings a world-famous arts campus, Michigan's first state-created park, and lake-and-woods living to Green Lake Township.
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Kaleva, the Finnish village
Kaleva's Finnish roots and the Makinen Bottle House give central Manistee County one of its signature village stories.
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Kalkaska, the Trout Capital
Kalkaska's railroad-and-lumber past, giant brook trout, and National Trout Festival make the county seat its own northern Michigan landmark.
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Leland, Fishtown, and the Manitou Islands
Leland, Fishtown, Lake Leelanau, and the Manitou Island ferry anchor the historic Lake Michigan side of the Leelanau Peninsula.
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Northport, the lighthouse, and the tip of the peninsula
Northport, Omena, Leelanau State Park, and the Grand Traverse Lighthouse anchor the quiet northern tip of the Leelanau Peninsula.
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The Old Mission Peninsula
The Old Mission Peninsula is Peninsula Township's scenic spine of orchards, vineyards, bay views, and old Grand Traverse history.
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The southern villages and countryside
Southern Grand Traverse County centers on Kingsley, Fife Lake, rural townships, rail history, farms, woods, and more affordable country living.
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Traverse City
Traverse City is northern Michigan's regional hub, with downtown, Grand Traverse Bay, the restored Commons, and busy Garfield Township close together.
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Beaver Island
Beaver Island is a remote Lake Michigan island with Strangite history, Irish roots, and a very different kind of property-buying rhythm.
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Beaverton: where two rivers meet
Beaverton began as Grand Forks at the Tobacco and Cedar river confluence and still works as a small gateway to water and woods.
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Bellaire and Shanty Creek
Bellaire is Antrim County's courthouse village and Chain of Lakes hub, with Shanty Creek nearby as a four-season resort.
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Boyne City
Boyne City is a lively Lake Charlevoix town with a working downtown, lumber history, and the National Morel Mushroom Festival.
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Charlevoix the Beautiful
Charlevoix the Beautiful is a premium resort town between Lake Michigan, Round Lake, and Lake Charlevoix.
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East Jordan
East Jordan is a working Lake Charlevoix town shaped by the Jordan River, EJ, and the Breezeway.
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Evart's Dulcimer Funfest: the world's biggest hammered dulcimer gathering
Every July, Evart hosts the ODPC Funfest, billed as the world's largest hammered dulcimer gathering.
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Fairview and Oscoda's Amish country
Fairview anchors Oscoda County's Amish community, farm country, small museums, and wild-turkey identity.
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