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History & Culture

Porch Notes

History & Culture notes

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The Blanchard House, a lawyer's mansion turned county museumAn 1880s Italianate mansion on Main Street in Ionia, built for lawyer and land man John C. Blanchard, is now the county historical museum.
The Branch County bell that was saved twiceColdwater's 1887 courthouse bell and clock survived a 1972 arson fire and were rebuilt into a freestanding tower, dedicated in 1988.
The castle on the hill is a water towerA 175-foot brick water tower built in 1895, crowned with castle battlements, still stands over the former Kalamazoo State Hospital east of downtown.
The causeway lined with 2,000 flagsVeterans Memorial Park stretches along the causeway between Muskegon and North Muskegon, where bronze plaques and Memorial Day flags honor area service members.
The college the county voted itself in 1965Montcalm Community College sits on College Drive near Sidney because county voters approved a college district in 1965 to put a two-year degree within reach without leaving home.
The county museum that used to be the poorhouseVan Buren County's history museum fills the 1884 brick building on Red Arrow Highway in Hartford that served as the county poorhouse and farm until 1952.
The Croswell has entertained Adrian since 1866The Croswell dates to 1866, spent about 50 years as a movie house, and returned to live theater after a 1967 civic rescue.
The Frank Lloyd Wright house that floats over a Bloomfield Hills ravineThe Affleck House in Bloomfield Hills is a 1941 Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home, now owned by Lawrence Technological University and open for seasonal tours.
The general who invented Muzak gave Dryden a free parkGeneral Squier Memorial Park in Dryden was a 'country club for country people' opened by George Owen Squier — the Signal Corps major general who patented the wired music service he named Muzak.
The Langley Covered Bridge near CentrevilleBuilt in 1887, the 282-foot Langley Covered Bridge north of Centreville is Michigan's longest remaining covered bridge.
The Lapeer State Home: a thousand-acre town that vanished inside the cityFrom 1895 to 1991, Lapeer held a state institution for people with disabilities — the Lapeer State Home, later Oakdale — that grew to thousands of residents, a hundred-plus buildings, and the county's largest payroll.
The Little River Railroad steam trainA volunteer nonprofit runs a 1911 Baldwin steam locomotive on excursion trips from Coldwater to Quincy, with the engine turned by hand at the layover.
The lumber baron who gave Muskegon his fortuneCharles Hackley made millions in Muskegon timber, then gave the city a park, a library, an art museum, and a hospital that still carry his name.
The Newaygo museum that explains 200 vanished townsA downtown Newaygo museum that tells the county's story through the fur trade, the white-pine logging boom that spawned nearly 200 short-lived towns, and the rise of Gerber baby food.
The Newton House: a farmhouse that forgot to changeThe George Newton House in Volinia Township, built in 1844, is a Michigan State Historic Site run as a museum by the Cass County Historical Society.
The Pix: Lapeer's 1941 movie house, dark for a year and lit ever sinceAn art deco single-screen theater that opened on Nepessing Street in 1941, went dark in 1996, and was bought by the city and reborn in 1997 as a live-performance stage running about fifty shows a season.
The prison on Boyer RoadThe Carson City Correctional Facility opened in 1989 on Boyer Road and became one of the largest steady employers in a rural corner of Montcalm County.
The red tower at the end of the South Haven pierSouth Haven's red pierhead lighthouse has marked the Black River since 1872, and its original keeper's catwalk is one of only four still standing in Michigan.
The rescued village at Goodells County ParkA log cabin, a one-room school, a country church and a farmhouse — all built in the 1800s and hauled to one spot at Goodells County Park to keep them from the wrecking ball.
The Royal Oak tower built so a cross couldn't be burnedThe Charity Crucifixion Tower at the National Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak was raised in 1931 in answer to a Klan cross burned at the parish.
The Schoolcraft house that hid a thousand freedom seekersIn Schoolcraft, the 1835 home of Dr. Nathan and Pamela Thomas was one of Michigan's busiest Underground Railroad stops, sheltering freedom seekers on their way to Canada.
The town of Perry packed up and walked to the railroadWhen tracks laid in the 1870s ran past the original settlement, Perry shifted its whole center to meet them — and stayed on the map while neighbors that missed the line faded.
The tunnel under the river at Port HuronDug beneath the St. Clair River in 1891, the railroad bore between Port Huron and Sarnia was the first full-size tunnel ever driven under a river in North America.
The Wing House Museum in ColdwaterAn 1875 Second Empire mansion on Coldwater's Marshall Street, kept by one family for three generations and now the county historical society's museum.
The young city wrapped around an old nameNorton Shores takes its name from Norton Township and Col. Amos Norton — but the city itself only formed in 1968, partly to keep from being annexed by its neighbors.
Union City's early iron furnaceAn 1847 furnace at Union City produced what was reportedly the first iron smelted from Michigan ore, then pivoted to making plows when bog iron proved too poor.
Vicksburg's rag-paper mill is getting a second lifeThe Lee Paper Mill in Vicksburg made fine cotton-rag writing paper from 1905 until 2001 and is being reborn as a mixed-use development, The Mill at Vicksburg.
Where 'Newaygo' comes from — and why the answer is two answersThe county's Ojibwe name traces back either to a chief who signed the 1819 Treaty of Saginaw or to a word tied to 'much water' — and the experts don't agree which.
Who Branch County is named forBranch County was laid out in 1829 and named for John Branch of North Carolina, Andrew Jackson's secretary of the navy, who never set foot in Michigan.
Why Bronson calls itself the Gladiola CapitalUS-12 heritage materials trace Bronson's Gladiola Capital nickname to local farms that grow gladiolus for distribution.
Why it's called Lapeer: French traders, the river, and 'the stone'Lapeer is 'la pierre' — French for 'the stone' — worn down into one word for the flinty rock at the river crossing, the same gray stone that named Flint downstream.
Why so many roads through here are called 'Territorial'The Territorial Road through Paw Paw was one of Michigan's first east-west pioneer routes, approved in 1829 to run from Detroit west toward Lake Michigan.
Will Rogers called this hilltop the Acropolis of Kalamazoo CountyWestern Michigan University began in 1903 as a small teacher-training school on Kalamazoo's Prospect Hill, whose columned first buildings drew a famous nickname.
Wyandotte: where America first made steel by the Bessemer methodThe Eureka Iron Works in Wyandotte poured the first commercial Bessemer steel in the United States in 1864, and rolled the country's first Bessemer steel rails in 1865.
Wyoming's New York name and 28th Street growthWyoming took its name from Wyoming County, New York, became a city in 1959, and grew around 28th Street, where Studio 28 expanded from one screen to 20.
A 16th-Century English Village Outside HollyEach fall, the Michigan Renaissance Festival turns a wooded site near Holly into Hollygrove, a make-believe Elizabethan village.
Frederik Meijer Gardens: sculpture, butterflies, and a 24-foot horseA 158-acre garden and sculpture park in Grand Rapids, home to a giant bronze horse based on a Leonardo da Vinci design left unfinished for 500 years.
Pine Knob: the Clarkston amphitheater that lost its name for 20 yearsWhen this open-air theater opened in Clarkston in 1972, the venue says it was the biggest amphitheater in the country — and it has since topped Pollstar's amphitheater chart more than once.
Plymouth's Big Winter Thaw That Never Melts the CrowdsEach winter, downtown Plymouth turns into an open-air gallery of glittering ice carvings, and big crowds bundle up to see them.
Crossroads Village & the Huckleberry Railroad: Step Back to the 1800sA living-history village of 34 historic buildings and a coal-fired steam train along Mott Lake — Genesee County's beloved trip back to the turn of the century, open since 1976.
The Flint Sit-Down Strike: 44 Days That Built the UAWFor 44 days in the winter of 1936-37, Flint autoworkers occupied GM's Fisher Body plants before a settlement recognized the UAW as their bargaining representative.
The Little Brick Office Where General Motors Was BornA plain brick office on Flint's Water Street was the headquarters of the Durant-Dort Carriage Company — and is credited as the 1908 birthplace of General Motors. It's a National Historic Landmark.
An 1886 iron bridge, a summer antique market, and an 1852 fairAllegan pairs its 1886 Second Street Bridge with a monthly summer antique market and a county fair whose recorded history begins in 1852.
Blueberries, peaches, and the lake that makes them possibleSouthwest Michigan's fruit belt grows a huge share of America's blueberries — South Haven calls itself the Blueberry Capital of the World and has thrown a festival since 1963.
Calumet, the town copper builtCalumet was once the beating heart of the world's richest copper district -- a booming, polyglot town of immigrants. Today its grand old buildings anchor Keweenaw National Historical Park, and a quiet memorial marks the Copper Country's deepest tragedy.
Carleton: the town that named itself after a poemAsh Township's village of Carleton took its name in 1872 from Will Carleton, the Michigan farm poet its founder admired.
Caro's 1899 sugarbeet factory is still setting recordsCaro's Michigan Sugar factory has sliced beets since 1899, and the company says it is the oldest operating sugarbeet factory in the United States.
Celery Flats: when Portage fed America its celeryPortage's mucklands once made the Kalamazoo area America's 'Celery City,' and the Celery Flats Historical Area preserves that story amid parkland and trails.
Cereal bowls and time capsules: Calhoun County's two famous townsCalhoun County gave America its breakfast — the Kellogg story began in Battle Creek — and preserves one of the country's finest 19th-century towns in Marshall.
Chelsea: the Jiffy mix tower and Jeff Daniels' theaterChelsea bakes America's Jiffy mixes beneath its landmark silos and hosts the Purple Rose, the professional theater founded by hometown actor Jeff Daniels.
Cherry Hill: the 1825 crossroads Canton planned aroundCherry Hill began as a farm-and-travel crossroads in 1825. Canton later used a historic district and design rules to carry its old center into a fast-growing township.
Clare: the police officers who saved a bakeryWhen Clare's longtime bakery was within weeks of closing, all nine members of the local police department banded together to save it.
Clinton Township is Michigan's most populous townshipThe township label hides a city-sized suburb: Census estimated 101,374 residents in 2025, and the community takes its name from the Clinton River.
Coldwater's lake chain and Tibbits Opera HouseSouth of Coldwater, nine named lakes and navigable channels make up the Coldwater-Marble chain; downtown, the 1882 Tibbits Opera House still hosts performances.
Covert: the township that integrated America a century earlyBeginning in the 1860s, Covert Township's Black and white settlers built a fully integrated community — schools, ballots, and public office — decades ahead of the nation.
Dearborn: a center of Arab American lifeDearborn is central to one of the country's largest Arab American communities and is home to the first and only U.S. museum devoted to recording the Arab American experience.
Dodge Park: Sterling Heights' riverfront living roomSterling Heights centers its civic life on Dodge Park along the Clinton River — home of the Sterlingfest art and music fair every July since 1983.
Eagle River and Eagle Harbor, two jewels on the shoreTwo tiny lakefront villages on the Keweenaw's north shore -- Eagle River, the county seat, and Eagle Harbor with its classic red lighthouse. Just offshore is where the man the county and copper rush owe everything to, Douglass Houghton, drowned.
Eat a dozen chili dogs, join the Hall of Fame: Rockford's Corner BarRockford's Corner Bar has run its Hot Dog Hall of Fame since 1968, burned to the walls in 2017, and reopened a year later to a line down Main Street.
Edenville: named for the Garden of Eden (really)Edenville Township's first postmaster looked out at the meeting of two rivers in 1869 and decided the view deserved the name Eden.

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