Residents in the Territory of Michigan voted in a congressional election for the first time electing William Woodbridge as a non-voting member of the US House of Representatives.

William Woodbridge actually served from March 1819 to August 1820.

Sources :

Historical Society of Michigan

Zlati Meyer, “This week in Michigan history: Territory gets to send delegate to House of Representatives”, Detroit Free Press, February 16, 2014.

The first all-steel railroad carferry, Pere Marquette 15, made its first crossing between Ludington and Manitowoc, Wisconsin on this day in 1897. The ferry, built by F.W. Wheeler & Company of Bay City, departed on the evening of the 16th, and arrived in Manitowoc at 7 a.m. the following day. She carried twenty-two freight cars, the private car of the Flint & Pere Marquette’s General Manager, other railroad dignitaries, and a brass band. The Pere Marquette went on to have a successful thirty-eight year career with only a few minor accidents.

For a time rail car ferries were all the rage on Lake Michigan and Lake Erie, as well as some rivers. Transporting up to 30 fully loaded railroad cars, ferries could trim time off the commute by avoiding the busy Chicago railroad terminal.

Sources :

Historical Society of Michigan and Wikipedia Commons.

Source : Michigan Historical Calendar, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.

Zlati Meyer, “World’s first all-steel car ferry debuted in Michigan”, Detroit Free Press, February 14, 2015.

Brandon Champion, “First-of-its-kind Pere Marquette car ferry made maiden voyage on this day in 1897”, MLive, February 16, 2016.

A Michigan tradition : ski jumpers launching themselves off of the jump at Suicide Hill or Suicide Bowl in Ishpeming. According to the Historical Society of Michigan, the first jump occurred on February 16, 1926.

Several areas and hills were used before Suicide Hill came into existence. The first formal tournament was held on February 25, 1888, by the Norden Ski Club (renamed the Ishpeming Ski Club in 1901). During the early years, hills were fashioned out of snow pushed up against boards to form the scaffold, then snow was piled up for the bump or takeoff, and smoothed out for the landing. The Norwegians and Finns had differing views on ski jumping as the Finnish skiers used poles. At one point the Ski Club decided to let the Finnish boys in the club, poles and all. However, during one meet, when the best skiers had difficulty reaching long distances, and fell during competition, it was blamed on the Finnish boys as their poles ruined the track, attesting to the high level of competitiveness between nationalities in those early years. Competitions were held at hills which include Brasswire, circa 1901, Jackson Hill, circa 1907, East New York Hill, circa 1923, Rocky  Walter Huns Anderson, circa 1924, with scaffolds built of man-made materials that provoked a certain amount of fear and danger, adding to the heightened spectra of adventure and daring, and giving way to tournaments exhibiting “death defying feats” by the town’s local jumpers.

Club officials kept looking for a better hill with greater capacity. Credit for discovering  Suicide Hill goes to Peter Handberg and Leonard Flaa, at the time active officers of the Ishpeming Ski Club. Engineering authorities had previously advised the club that 165 feet was the maximum they could jump in the Old Jackson Hill and efforts were launched in 1925 to locate new hills. Flaa and Handberg, recalling remarks of those who had tramped that district, searched the territory and decided on the locale. They settled on the present location in Section 12, Negaunee; and negotiated a lease from Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company. Representative citizens and service club officers were invited to make an inspection, and when they concurred with the Flaa-Handberg findings, development work started. Work started in the autumn of 1925 on clearing, grading, and shaping the hill. Ishpeming turned in another of its famous performances for community effort – Suicide Hill was built by volunteer labor and donated materials. The effort was rewarded with scheduled a completion and the first meet on Suicide Hill to be held February 26, 1926.

Suicide, carved out of a pine forest, nestled among rocky bluffs, looks forbidding and formidable, as the man-made scaffold peers over the tree tops. The scaffold towers 140 feet towards the sky. Its structure is supported by 4 x 8″ I-beams bolted to a 4 to 5 foot cement pilar foundation, 2 x 4″ angle irons connecting the massive I-beams, and 4 x 8″ x 2.7 meter I-beams, with Douglas fir flooring, and particle board sideboards, stretching a length of 90 kilometers.  Its scaffold can be seen towering over the tops of trees at several locations throughout Ishpeming and Negaunee.

Suicide Hill got its name when in 1926 Walter “Huns” Anderson was injured on the hill. The local newspaper reporter, Ted Butler, said “Sure it’s a good hill, but why not have a little color about it. I gave it the name a few days before it was used in 1926. Walter Anderson fell in practice a few days before the meet and was badly hurt. In the stories I sent out about him, I called it Suicide Hill and the name stuck”. “We don’t like the name ‘Suicide Hill,” James Flaa, club official protested, “because it keeps riders away. It creates the wrong impression of what troubles await them”. Actually, it’s one of the best hills in the country. Even Johanna Kolstad, the fine Norwegian woman skier, says she has only seen one better hill in the country. But the name did stick, and it has turned out to be a fine, competitive, and safe hill.

Sources :

Ishpeming Ski Club History.

Johanna Boyle, “Ski jumpers take to the air at Suicide Bowl”, Mining Journal, February 9, 2012.

Historical Society of Michigan.

On February 16, 1935, Salvatore “Sonny” Bono of “Sonny and Cher” fame was born in Detroit to Italian immigrant parents.

Bono’s “I Got You Babe,” released in 1965, one year after his marriage to Cherilyn La Pierre (Cher), left the singing duo a national success story. After music and divorce, Bono entered politics and served as mayor of Palm Springs, California. He died in a skiing accident in January 1998.

Source :

Detroit Historical Society Facebook Page

I Got You Babe (1965)

Jerome Bettis will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday. He is one of the most iconic running backs of the last 20 years, a hard-hitting throwback with one of the game’s great nicknames who ended his career in fairytale fashion with a championship in his hometown.

But really, when you look back at Bettis’ career, the man they call “The Bus” probably never should have found a path to the NFL, much less to the podium he will soon stand on in Canton, Ohio.

While other kids were playing youth football and carrying their pads to practice, Bettis was competing in bowling tournaments with his family, carrying a briefcase to middle school, wearing thick-framed glasses and battling asthma.

Bettis rushed for 13,662 yards in 13 seasons for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Los Angeles Rams. But he had almost no football pedigree and didn’t play running back until his junior year at Detroit Mackenzie.

And when he made some poor choices in high school, if it weren’t for the intervention of a coach, Bettis’ career might have ended, along with his life.

But this what Bettis did have: Detroit and his family, an extremely strong work ethic and enough sense to rely on the good people around him.

For the full article, see Carlos Monarrez, “Growing up in Detroit helped make Bettis a Hall of Famer”, Detroit Free Press, August 2, 2015.

On February 16, 1974, Joe Maka of Grand Haven speared the largest fish ever caught in Michigan waters — a 193-pound, 87 inch long sturgeon — at Mullett Lake in Cheboygan County.

On the other side of the state…..

Since 2003, Michigan Sea Grant and a team of public-private partners have constructed a series of fish spawning reefs in an effort to increase populations of lake sturgeon and other native fishes within the Huron-Erie Corridor, the St Clair and Detroit Rivers and Lake St. Clair. Many fish seek out rocky areas in fast-flowing currents in order to deposit their eggs during spawning season. Unfortunately, many of the natural limestone reefs and rocky areas were destroyed when shipping channels were constructed. Despite massive population declines, the waterways connecting Lakes Huron and Erie continue to support the largest remaining population of lake sturgeon in the Great Lakes.

According to Mike Thomas, MDNR fisheries biologist, the importance of Lake St. Clair as a summer feeding habitat for lake sturgeon has become more apparent because of various tagging programs over the past 15 years. These fish are actively foraging on the abundant community of benthic invertebrates present in the lake, which include zebra and quagga mussels, mayfly nymphs, amphipods, snails, midge larvae, caddisfly larvae, and other taxa. The fact that these huge fish are feeding on such relatively small food items really sets them apart from other Great Lakes fish.

And they jump! Lake sturgeon are frequently seen jumping during the summer on Lake St. Clair, a sight that is truly incredible. When seen jumping from a distance, they are often misidentified by anglers as “muskies.” The reason for this jumping behavior remains unknown – perhaps to dislodge silver lamprey often attached, or maybe just for fun. The sturgeon have not been jumping on this cruise, but we do get to see these awesome fish up close and personal as biologists hold them carefully for us to photograph before returning them to the lake.

“10 Biggest Fish Caught in Michigan“, WideOpenSpaces

Steve Stewart, “The Largest Fish in the Great Lakes“, MSU Extension.

For more information, see DNR’s Lake Sturgeon website and Lake Sturgeon: Giant of the Great Lakes

Michigan current state record fish – as of October 2017

Well Aaron Montgomery Ward was actually born in Chatham, New Jersey. However he moved to Niles, Michigan with his family in 1853. Though he only attended school through his 14th year, Monty learned much while working his first job in a barrel stave factory. He eventually decided to leave home in order to find more enjoyable work in St. Joseph, Michigan. He later wrote that, “Being a fair salesman, within nine months I was engaged as a salesman in a general country store at the princely salary of $6 per month and board.” He rose to become head clerk and general manager and remained at this store for three years before accepting a better job in a competing store, where he worked two more years. In this period, Aaron Montgomery Ward learned a great deal about the processes and economics of retailing before moving to Chicago and establishing Montgomery Ward and Co., the world’s first mail-order business.

Source : Michigan Historical Calendar, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.

On February 17, 1918, the U.S. Department of Justice sent instructions to “war bureaus” throughout Michigan to arrest all German aliens who had failed to register. As a result, many of Michigan’s 80,000 German-born and 20,000 Austrian-born residents who had not registered with the government faced internment or deportation. This came in the wake of anti-German sentiment sweeping the nation after the declaration of World War I.

Source: Mich-Again’s Day