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History & Culture, page 11
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.
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When Chicago summered on Paw Paw Lake
A century ago, special trains delivered thousands of Chicagoans to Paw Paw Lake's hotels and dance pavilions; today the lake is Coloma and Watervliet's year-round backyard.
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When Menominee floated a forest down the river
In the white-pine years, the Menominee River carried billions of feet of logs to the mills at Menominee and Marinette -- twin cities that styled themselves the White Pine Capital of the World.
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When Saginaw was the lumber capital of the world
In the 1870s and 80s the Saginaw Valley's 80-plus sawmills made it the lumber capital of the world, and the Castle Museum keeps that story alive.
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When St. Louis was 'the Saratoga of the West'
In 1869 a salt-drilling crew in St. Louis struck 'magnetic' mineral water, and for a generation the town was a famous health resort with grand hotels and celebrity guests.
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Where Packards proved themselves: Shelby Township's automotive shrine
Shelby Township preserves the Packard Proving Grounds — Albert Kahn's 1928 test-track buildings, saved by volunteers and alive with car shows and events.
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Whitefish Point and the Edmund Fitzgerald
At the tip of Whitefish Point stands Lake Superior's oldest lighthouse and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, which remembers the hundreds of ships lost on this 'Shipwreck Coast' -- among them the Edmund Fitzgerald, which went down with all 29 hands in 1975.
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Who Houghton County is named for
Houghton County, the city of Houghton, and even Houghton Lake all carry the name of Douglass Houghton -- Michigan's first state geologist, whose 1841 copper report set off the boom, and who drowned in Lake Superior at just thirty-six.
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Who Marquette is named for
Marquette -- the city, the county, and the university -- is named for Father Jacques Marquette, the French Jesuit missionary and explorer who traveled the Great Lakes in the 1600s and helped map the upper Mississippi.
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Why everyone's moving to Ottawa County
Ottawa County — Lake Michigan beaches, the Grand River, Tulip Time, and top-rated communities — has been Michigan's fastest-growing county for years running.
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Why Oakland? Oak openings, 1,400 lakes, and Michigan's prosperity engine
Oakland County took its name from the park-like oak openings the first surveyors found — and its 1,400 lakes and glacial hills still set the landscape apart.
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Why the river is named Raisin (and the township Raisinville)
French settlers named Monroe County's river the Rivière aux Raisins for the wild grapes draping its banks — and Raisinville Township carries the name on.
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Willow Run: where Rosie the Riveter built a bomber an hour
Ypsilanti Township's Willow Run plant turned out a B-24 bomber roughly every hour at its WWII peak — the 'Arsenal of Democracy' made literal, now honored by the Yankee Air Museum.
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Yates Cider Mill: pressing apples on the Clinton River since the 1800s
Yates Cider Mill in Rochester Hills has run since 1863 — cider since 1876, pressed with an 1894 water turbine — where the Clinton River Trail meets fall tradition.
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Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo (and it gives kids free college)
Kalamazoo County built America's first pedestrian mall in 1959 and, since 2005, sends its public-school graduates to college on the anonymous donors of the Kalamazoo Promise.
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Zilwaukee: the town that (maybe) tried to out-spell Milwaukee
Local legend says Zilwaukee's founders picked the name hoping German immigrants bound for Milwaukee would get off the boat here instead.
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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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