News History & Fun in Michigan
We examine stories and events that shaped the history of the Upper Thumb and Michigan. While we focus on the Thumb region, other Great Lakes historical events are covered. Major events include the lumbering era and the 1871 and 1881 great fires. We cover major pioneers and personalities that shaped the region. To hear many of our best stories, visit and subscribe to our Podcast, “The End of the Road in Michigan.”
Our best Michigan history posts are found below.
Houghton Lake began as a northern Michigan community shaped by logging and rough transportation. Historic street scenes show how automobiles, fishing camps, cottage resorts, stores and restaurants gradually changed the village into a vacation destination during the first half of the 20th century.
Munuscong Inn history brings together a Thumb couple, fishing boats and passing Great Lakes steamers. This Michigan resort also offered gasoline and housed the local post office. Archival views trace its vacation years and its later role as Camp Conely beside the St. Marys River.
Clifford Michigan history follows a village shaped by roads, railroads and the farms around it. Historic photographs show its depot, creamery, blacksmith shops and Main Street during the shift from horses to automobiles. Read how transportation created a second business district and changed daily life in northern Lapeer County.
Pointe Aux Pins on Bois Blanc Island grew from an 1880s steamer landing into a close-knit summer colony with a hotel, church, cottages, boardwalks, dog-sled mail and ferry service.
Rare photographs reveal Ruth, Michigan, when trains stopped at the depot, grain wagons crowded town, church bells rang and Main Street served Huron County farm families.
The History of Palms Michigan comes alive through rare postcards showing its railroad yards, New Hotel Palms, church and business district before a devastating 1916 fire changed the Sanilac County community.
Flat Rock, Michigan, grew beside a river that powered mills long before Henry Ford opened a lamp factory there. A failed canal, a railroad depot, a cement road crew and civic gathering places show how the town changed between settlement and the automobile age.
For generations, a tall smokestack rising above the River Raisin announced that Clinton, Michigan, was more than a farming community and Chicago Road stagecoach stop. It was a manufacturing town. At the center of that industrial era stood the Clinton Woolen …
Before Interstate 94, before automobiles and even before Michigan became a state, travelers heading between Detroit and Chicago faced a long overland journey. In Clinton, one building became part of that traffic story. The structure remembered as the Old Stage House …
Fort Gratiot light was built in April 1829. It was situated north of an older tower light that has collapsed into the St. Clair river after a violent storm. The tower was constructed of brick to the height of 65 feet. In 1862 the height was increased to 82 feet to match the focal point of a new 4th order Fresnel lens.
