News History & Fun in Michigan
This tag hints at articles and stories about Michigan history and the Michigan Thumb region. Michigan was part of the Northwest territory, and starting in 1815, the fur trade and influx of settlers and land speculators began.
By the time Michigan became a state in 1838, much of the southern third was already cris-crossed with improved Indian trails and initial roads. In a few short years, the lumbering era would begin, followed by the agriculture growth resulting from the cleared land.
EGLE’s interactive history examines the wildfire that killed hundreds, displaced thousands, and launched the American Red Cross’ first major relief effort. LANSING, Mich. — A new interactive story map is bringing fresh attention to the Great Thumb Fire of 1881, the …
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.
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.
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.
Grand Blanc’s early history includes horse-drawn school buses, a working mill, a railroad depot and a business street adapting to automobile travel. Historic images show how farms, schools and local businesses shaped this Genesee County community before its later suburban growth.
Watch this Michigan Moments episode as we travel back to downtown to see a bit of Elkton Michigan history in 1940, when a single photograph captured a community on the brink of change. One vintage photograph tells an entire story. Parked …
Quincy Mine Michigan earned the nickname Old Reliable through decades of copper production and steady dividends. Its story also includes immigrant labor, record-setting depth, the 1913 strike, the massive Nordberg steam hoist and the economic pressures that halted major underground mining in 1931.
Historic images of Yale, Michigan, show a busy Main Street, the Paisley Hotel, woolen and flour mills, a canning factory and the Pere Marquette railroad during the community’s early 20th-century industrial era.
Yale, Michigan, is famous for bologna, but its working history began decades earlier. Lumber, railroads, wool production, grain milling and food processing built the town. Later, a Main Street meat shop created the food tradition that would become Yale’s best-known calling card.
