Finding Fun in Michigan & Beyond
Our best Michigan history posts are found below.
After the Great Fire of 1881, Michigan Sugar Beet production took off in Mid-Michigan. Dozens of factories were built for refinement.
This article offers a detailed history of this Michigan industry.
The Bach General Store, long since closed. Once the center of the community, these shops were common in the days before Walmart and Dollar General.
The Cartwheel Inn was an entertainment destination in Port Austin. Top bands and bikers from Detroit and Chicago would stop by for “fun.”
The history and story behind the 115 year old Caro Michigan River Dam. It’s been a home to Native Americans and early Michigan settlers.
The Dam is falling into significant disrepair. If it fails the Cass river would become a mere creek which would greatly impact recreational boating and fishing.
Fortunately there is interest in refurbishing the historic structure.
On the shores of Lake Huron near the tip of Michigan’s Thumb is a well appointed cottage community that used to be a thriving company lumber town. New River Michigan as been almost erased by time and nature.
Historically, Saginaw Bay supported Lake Huron’s largest commercial walleye fishery and was second in the Great Lakes to only Lake Erie.
The earliest commercial fisheries dated to the 1830s, and walleye were specifically noted in catch records as early as 1858.
As a result of the corrosive nature of the Flint River water and mismanagement by all of the appointed emergency managers, the Flint city government and by Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality an unknown number of children in Flint, Michigan (estimates are in the 1000’s), were exposed to dangerous amounts of lead in their drinking water over a period of 18 months.
We take a postcard street view of Bad Axe from the early 1900s and compare it to today.
Its an interesting peek on how much changes over 100 years. But some elements remain.
