News History & Fun in Michigan
In the reel image from about 1925, Curwood’s Castle rises behind bare trees along the Shiawassee River. The small stone-and-stucco building looks like something lifted from a European story, yet it stands in Owosso, a mid-Michigan city about 40 miles northeast …
North of Grayling, Michigan, the Underground Forest drew 1950s families into a 240-foot tunnel lined with taxidermy wildlife scenes. Built into a sandy hill along Old US-27, this odd roadside stop thrived on vacation traffic until I-75 opened and the cars — and the cave — slowly disappeared.
In the 1910 postcard, the Eastern Michigan Asylum for the Insane looms over a bare yard in Pontiac. Tall brick towers, steep roofs, and long wings stretch across the frame. It looks more like a grand hotel than a hospital. Yet …
Hedge’s Wigwam once stood at Woodward and 10 Mile as a concrete teepee cafeteria serving barbecued beef and chicken pot pie to generations of Michigan motorists. This article traces its rise from juice stand to landmark, its 1967 closure, 1972 fire and the statues that remain.
These scenes from around Edmore Michigan, in Montcalm County, show what came after Michigan’s great lumber boom. Once this ground held a deep white pine forest; by the early 1900s, it was a sea of stumps. Crews of farmers and hired …
From the brick Hotel Lenox to St. Augustine’s stone church and the steady hum of the Grand Trunk Railway, the history of Richmond Michigan between 1890 and 1930 shows how a modest farm town adopted modern life without losing its close community ties.
We examine a local legend of Indian gold and a hermit who made a castle at Loosemore point near the tip of Michigan’s Thumb.
Defunct Michigan automakers once filled Detroit, Lansing and Kalamazoo with factories, jobs and big promises. This feature profiles Packard, Hudson, AMC, REO, Hupmobile, Detroit Electric and Checker, and explains how each tried to stand against the Big Three before finally closing the doors.
