News History & Fun in Michigan
A photograph taken around 1920 shows the Somerset Tavern in Hillsdale County with several early automobiles lined up outside. A small group stands on the porch and steps. At first glance, it looks like a quiet rural hotel. In fact, the …
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 …
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 …
A century-old photograph can sometimes catch technology at the exact moment it still seemed impossible. This image, dated 1915, shows a smiling young aviator standing beside an early biplane in Bad Axe, Michigan. Handwritten lettering identifies him as “The Bird Man …
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.
The History of Fitchburg Michigan follows a sawmill village that served Ingham County farms with stores, blacksmiths, a church and a school. Better roads and machinery later weakened its business center while nearby farms became more productive.
Historic photographs trace Sandusky, Michigan, from its lumber-era roots into a busy county seat shaped by railroads, agriculture and local commerce. The account follows two depots, grain elevators, downtown hotels, the 1915 courthouse fire and the unusual Practical Institute of Pharmacy class photographed in 1929.
Sidnaw, Michigan, began as a booming lumber town in the late 1800s. By the early 1900s, it had sawmills, factories, hotels, and a union depot where the Milwaukee Road and South Shore railroads crossed. Families arrived, stores opened, and farms replaced the forests.
One historic photograph may show a short-lived settlement near Michigamme Falls in Iron County. Log buildings, a dirt road and an early automobile survive in the image, but the camp’s identity and fate remain uncertain.
