A leisurely Look at Michigan’s stories and traditions from yesterday to yesteryear.
The Grange – or “the National Order of the Patrons of Husbandry” – sought to educate and build cooperation among American farmers. Over the past 137 years, it has left a rich legacy of charity, community service, and education that continues today.
Next spring, when your annual special issue of Michigan History magazine arrives in the mail, what would you like to see inside? This year, we’re inviting you to weigh in on the topic.
Here is the “World’s Largest Stove” at its current location – the State Fairgrounds in Detroit. The “giant stove” symbolizes Detroit’s time as the center of the American stove industry.
For more than seventy years, the schooner Rockaway remained undisturbed at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Then, on September 29, 1983, a charter fishing boat discovered the wreckage.
When we see letters appear on our computer screens, we usually give them little thought. Paul Hayden Duensing, however, cared deeply about the “look of letters.”
Vandalia, Michigan farmers found some curious fragments in their fields. Were those stories about a runaway slave community true?
In 1902, five Kalamazoo businessmen bought Orville Gibson’s patent for a new type of mandolin. The Gibson name would come to carry special resonance for lovers of fine stringed musical instruments.
John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. As the nation grieved, a hunt for the killer ensued. Baker’s cousin, Lafayette Baker (also from Lansing) headed the Secret Service investigation, with Luther and Everton J. Conger assisting him. Once they picked up Booth’s trail, they set out in pursuit.
The Michigan Historical Commission launched its “Historymobile” in 1964. This fifty-four foot long “museum on wheels” traveled to Michigan communities for the next ten or so years.
I do like some markers more than others for different reasons: the topic, the way the marker is written, and the research/writing process for that particular subject. Here are a few that fit under the “favorite heading” and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
"If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you." The Michigan state motto served as the inspiration for this blog. If you look, you will find stories, photos and more to connect you to this great state and its wonderful history.
Yamasaki remains an important part of our international architectural heritage. This is part one of a two part blog on Yamasaki and his life as written by guest blogger Dale Allen Gyure, Ph.D.
