Detroit has a Hubbard Street. A dormitory at Michigan State is called Hubbard Hall. On Six Mile and Schaefer is the Hubbard branch of the Detroit Public Library. There’s a small neighborhood on Detroit’s southwest side called Hubbard Farms.
All of them honor Bela Hubbard, a 19th century Detroiter of many occupations, but most people have no idea who he was.
Hubbard arrived in Detroit as a young man from Hamilton, N.Y., in 1835. He settled in Springwells Township – a sprawling area that ran from southwest Detroit to the Rouge River and included Dearborn. While in his twenties, Hubbard explored northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula as an assistant geologist to state geologist Douglass Houghton (for whom the city of Houghton is named). When the geology survey was finished Hubbard became a land agent and used his newly acquired knowledge of the northern wilderness to buy timbered land for contacts in New York and for himself. In turn he made a fortune selling the pine lumber.
Hubbard also was a lawyer, farmer, historian, writer and civic leader. He had an interest in Native Americans and prehistoric mounds. He traveled to Europe. It was Hubbard’s days in Paris with its wide, tree-lined avenues that inspired him to push forward the concept of Grand Boulevard in Detroit; he donated a large chunk of his own land for the boulevard.
Note : Not only did Hubbard fund Hubbard Hall but in 1855 he was instrumental in establishing Michigan State University, originally called State Agricultural College and Model Farm.
Source : Bill Loomis, “The Renaissance man who envisioned Grand Boulevard”, Detroit Free Press, May 11, 2014.
On April 23, 1859, the Michigan Asylum for the Insane in Kalamazoo, Michigan’s first state institution for the treatment of the mentally ill, admitted its first patient. For many years, however, most families, rather than suffer the social disgrace of committing a relative, continued to confine mentally ill family members in attics, sheds or even backyard iron cages.
Source: Mich-again’s Day
George Richmond, a young Lansing dentist, developed a working telephone in 1873, three years before Alexander Graham Bell.
According to a 1983 article by Manuel Castro in Lansing Metropolitan Quarterly, Richmond set up a telephone connection between his home and his office on which he called his wife “hundreds of times” from 1873 to 1875, making careful note of the phone’s performance with each modification.
While perfectionist Richmond tinkered, Bell beat him in the patent race, filing his application in February 1876. However, Richmond’s telephone outperformed Bell’s in long-distance communication. In 1878, a test call from Richmond’s North Lansing office to Detroit came through loud and clear to the man at the other end, Alfred Beamer, a Lansing telegraph agent.
“Beamer, Beamer, do you hear me?” Richmond hollered. “I will sing.” When Richmond launched into “Marching On,” the words were audible 20 feet from the receiver in Detroit.
On April 23, 1878, at age 28, Richmond was granted a patent for his “speaking-telephone transmitter.” He got a lucrative employment offer from the Bell Telephone Co., but declined, counting on local business owners who promised to help him start his own company. Their support never materialized, and Richmond became a historical footnote.
Richmond was also working on a phonograph, naively divulging his materials and methods in journals of the day, when he was shocked to learn that Thomas Edison patented a similar device in 1877.
According to Castro’s article, Richmond died in 1898, at age 48, with “melancholia” listed as the cause of death.
Source : “I Will Sing”, Lansing City Pulse, May 28-June 3, 2014, p.35
Photo of Henry Ford and a farmer driving the Fordson Tractor
Luther Burbank (who developed the Idaho potato!) was an American plant breeder, naturalist, and author who was well-known for his experiments with plants, fruits, and vegetables. On April 23, 1918 Burbank received a gift from his friend and fellow innovator, Henry Ford. It was the first Fordson tractor produced at Ford’s assembly plant. Henry Ford Blog Post, April 23, 2018.
A Cleaner Version of the Fordson Tractor. Fenders became available for the Fordson tractor in 1924. The long rear skirts were said to help prevent the tractors from rolling over backward, a trait for which the Fordson was notorious.
Fordson is certainly a curious name for a tractor, but what a tractor it was. Its introduction in 1917 helped change the American farm tractor from the hulking, steam engine-like prairie breakers to what we think of as ‘normal’ farm machines today. In fact, the tractors were so popular that almost a million Fordsons were built by Ford Motor Co. before the name was finally dropped in 1964.
Why the name Fordson? The answer is found in the tractor’s fascinating history. The Ford Motor Co., founded in 1903, was originally a stock-based company with several hundred stockholders. It was actually the third company founded on Henry Ford’s automotive genius, and the same firm still exists.
The other two companies were also stock-based businesses, but Henry always chaffed under the control and limitations imposed by stockholders. In fact, stockholders suspected Henry withheld his best efforts in order to extort a bigger share of the profits.
Ford was actually fired from the second Ford firm, which then changed its name to Cadillac Motor Co. Meanwhile, the third Ford incarnation – called Ford Motor Co. and its stockholders did quite well making the famous Model T automobile.
In July 1917, Henry Ford organized another corporation under the name Henry Ford & Son Inc. The company’s mission was to manufacture tractors, equipment and ‘self-propelling vehicles of every description.’ Stockholders of this corporation were limited to Henry, his wife, Clara, and their son, Edsel, then only 24 years old.
While Henry intended to manufacture tractors under the new firm and had worked on developing a farm machine for some time, the new company was part of his gambit to encourage Ford Motor Co. stockholders to sell out to him at reasonable prices. The trump card that Henry held was the fact that stockholders feared Henry Ford & Son would begin building cars and directly compete with Ford Motor Co.
Before the gambit succeeded – which it eventually did – World War I had strained British agriculture to the breaking point. Lord Percival Perry, head of British Ford Co., knew of Henry’s tractor experiments and encouraged the designer to mass-produce a low-cost tractor for sale to British farmers.
The British Ministry of Munitions placed an order for 6,000 tractors just after Henry Ford & Son was first formed. That move secured the tractor’s market – and the future of Fordson.
At that time, the tractor had no name, but was simply called the Ford tractor. That, however, couldn’t be the tractor’s official name. A Minneapolis group – which actually included a man named Carl B. Ford – had already organized under the name Ford Tractor Co., in order to capitalize on Henry Ford’s successful automobile business. The Minnesota-based company produced a few tractors, but both the firm and its tractor line quickly vanished from the overcrowded farm equipment market.
With the British Ministry of Munitions order, Ford also agreed to manufacture the tractor in Cork, Ireland, from which the Ford family had emigrated years before. In the ensuing transatlantic telegraph communications among the Ministry, British Ford and Henry’s Detroit headquarters, telegraph operators shortened the name Henry Ford & Son to merely ‘Fordson.’ Henry liked it and thought it a suitable encouragement to young Edsel, whom Henry wanted meaningfully involved in the tractor company.
The first tractors built to fill the British government order didn’t carry the ‘Fordson’ identification, but the name Fordson was later cast into the radiator tank when production started for the American market in 1918. The same was later done for tractors produced in Ireland.
In 1928, all Fordson production lines in the U.S. were transferred to Britain. Apparently, Ford needed the factory space in Detroit for his newly-designed Model A automobile. Fordson tractor production continued through 1964 with both major and minor changes.
For example, the original flywheel magneto was replaced with a high-tension impulse variety, which greatly improved its starting ability. Other changes included an improved air cleaner, while engine displacement was increased from 251 cubic inches to 267 cubic inches, providing more power.
Cast iron front wheels and a heavier front axle improved the machine’s balance, and some late-model Fordsons were pioneering diesel-burning tractors.
The final Fordson tractor rolled off the line in 1964, but the Fordson legacy lingers in the hearts (and sheds) of old iron collectors across the globe.
Sources:
Sam Moore, “Henry Ford’s Revolutionary Farm Tractor“, August 2011.
Robert N. Pripps, “Birth of the Fordson Tractor“, March 2004.
Lee Majors, who starred in such television series as “The Big Valley”, “The Six-Million Dollar Man”, and “The Fall Guy” was born in Wyandotte.
“My dad passed away there when mom was eight months’ pregnant with me,” explains iconic actor Lee Majors, who is best known — depending upon your generation — as nuclear-powered ex-test pilot Col. Steve Austin in the classic ’70s action series, hunky illegitimate heir Heath Barkley in the ’60s western The Big Valley, or Hollywood stuntman-slash-bounty hunter Colt Seavers in the ’80s hit The Fall Guy. “Then when I was 16 months old, my mom was hit by a drunk driver and killed while she was waiting to go to work as a nurse. So I was immediately kind of shipped away to distant relatives in Kentucky.
“The only time I went back [to Detroit] was three, four years ago, because I never knew where they were buried and we found them. But they didn’t have markers so I came back and had some markers put in,” Majors says. “It brought a little closure. So those are the only Detroit stories I have. I’ve been twice, and neither of them were too happy times.”
His third visit is almost guaranteed to be the charm — or at least considerably more charming. This time Majors is venturing into the wide-open spaces of the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi between May 16-18 (2014) to help Detroit celebrate the 25th anniversary of the most illustrious of our pop culture traditions: the Motor City Comic Con.
Sources :
Michigan Magazine, March/April 2014
Jim McFarlin, “Star-Powered Celebration; The Six Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman, and even Captain Kirk are coming to Motor City Comic Con’s 25th anniversary”, Hour Detroit, May 2014
On April 23, 1954, filmmaker Michael Moore was born in Davison. In his career, he’s directed and/or produced many documentaries including:
Bowling for Columbine, which examines the causes of the Columbine High School massacre and overall gun culture of the United States, won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature.
Roger & Me, a film detailing how a General Motors factory was shutdown in Flint and its work sent to Mexico
Fahrenheit 9/11, which explored life in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks,
War on Terror, which became the highest-grossing documentary at the American box office of all time and winner of a Palme d’Or
Sicko, which critiques the American health care system, focusing especially on the HMOs, drug companies, and congressmen who profit from the status quo.
Slacker Uprising, which documented his personal quest to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections
Moore was also instrumental in restoring the State Theater in Traverse City and founded the Traverse City Film Festival.
Sources :
Michigan Historical Calendar, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.
For more information see
Here comes trouble : stories from my life / Michael Moore. New York : Grand Central, c2011.
Michael Moore : filmmaker, newsmaker, cultural icon / Matthew H. Bernstein, editor. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2010.
Michael Moore : a biography / by Emily Schultz. Toronto : ECW Press, c2005.
Twenty-seven members of the Ku Klux Klan taunted counter protestors, promoting racism and praising God for AIDS, on this day at the Michigan Capitol.
A 6-foot chain link fence and a line of police provided some measure of protection from the 800 counterprotestors who jeered the Klansmen. Three people were injured and eight were arrested, primarily for disorderly conduct.
500 officers were on duty, some mounted on horses, trying to maintain order.
The Ku Klux Klan claimed they were exercising their right to free speech according to John Truscott, then press-secretery to Governor John Engler.
Source : Source : Carol Thompson, “Michigan’s Capitol has seen several prominent protests”, Lansing State Journal, January 17, 2021.
On the night of Feb. 15, 1898, the Battleship Maine — which had been sent to Havana, Cuba to rescue U.S. citizens caught up in a Cuban insurrection against their colonial rulers (Spain) — famously exploded and 266 U.S. sailors lost their lives. It was and is unclear to this day exactly what caused the ship to explode; at the time a Spanish mine or torpedo was suspected but today experts tend to believe an engine blew up. No matter the cause, it was enough for the Americans and war was declared on April 21, 1898
On April 24, 1898, Gov. Hazen Pingree called up the Michigan National Guard for service in the Spanish-American War. While only three Michigan men died in combat in Cuba, 698 died of diseases including malaria and yellow fever.
Crowds line the streets in Detroit as soldiers from the Michigan National Guard march to Union Depot for their departure to Camp Eaton near Brighton to prepare for the Spanish-American War in 1898.
Michigan converted its National Guard regiments, first established for the Civil War, into volunteer regiments: the Michigan 31st, 32nd, 33rd, 34th and 35th. The 33rd and 34th were the only ones to see action. Each regiment was divided into three battalions, and then subdivided into companies A through M, each containing about 80 men.
Enormous crowds described as reaching 100,000 people mobbed downtown Detroit for the send-off. People were held back by horse-mounted police as young volunteers in new uniforms marched down Randolph to Jefferson, and then up Woodward. About 700 Detroiters were mustered into the 34th Regiment, Companies A through H. Families and friends called out to the volunteers as they marched by and marching bands played “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”
“It was a sight never to be forgotten,” described the Detroit Free Press on April 27, 1898. “From business windows [we] looked down on a surging sea of people to which there flowed as between living banks a steady current of blue, the men of the Michigan National Guard. … Rarely in the memory of recent generations has there appeared such an inspiring spectacle as was presented by these soldiers and the crowd that bid them God-speed. Cheer upon cheer arose from the multitudes until the air was thunderous with shouting, and the music of the bands was drowned in universal applause.”
If nothing else is remembered about the Spanish American War it is the battle cry, “Remember the Maine!” On that day in 1898 the banner “Remember the Maine!” was everywhere in Detroit. There was a second part to the phrase that is now forgotten: “Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!”
Michigan recruits at Camp Eaton
Days after war was declared the U.S. Army and Gov. Pingree selected Island Lake near Brighton for its regimental camp, dubbed Camp Eaton; when full, Camp Eaton held more than 4,000 raw recruits.
All arrived by trains from different regions and cities of Michigan, from the Upper Peninsula to Detroit, each train festooned with a “Remember the Maine” banner. One battalion of the 31st regiment sported new blankets with bouquets of flowers pinned to them by the ladies of their town. The new soldiers lived eight to a tent, drilled daily and learned sentry duty; reveille came at 5:30 a.m. and taps sounded at 10:30 p.m. Visitors, especially fretting mothers and fathers, came to check on their sons; many demanded to retrieve them or insisted that their son get better accommodations, which were respectfully ignored.
The new soldiers were paid $1.25 per month with 75 cents for “sustenance.” For entertainment, boxing matches were held as well as band concerts provided by Detroit’s 32nd infantry. The recruits were allowed to visit Brighton on Saturday night until 25 were arrested for drunkenness by the Brighton police and leaders ended that activity.
Governor Pingree visits Camp Eaton.
Governor Pingree was a true friend of these young soldiers both politically and personally, buying better boots and uniforms for his boys. He was a regular visitor on his white horse and followed them even as they shipped to other parts of the U.S.
The army’s plan was to send the new recruits to southern camps, such as Chickamauga Park, Ga., or Tampa Bay, Fla., to acclimate the northern recruits before sending them into the tropical Cuban hillsides.
On their last day before shipping out, 1st Sergeant William Cooper from the 31st Regiment, Company A, of Ann Arbor, recorded his experiences for the local paper, the Ann Arbor Argus Democrat:
“May 15th came and with it thousands of friends of the regiment. They came by train loads, by vehicles of every description, some came on wheels, some walked and all brought their lunch baskets with them, and soon the beautiful grounds were dotted with family groups who were lunching together there perhaps for the last time. … Sweethearts came for a last kiss and a look that meant everything. The day wore away and the crowd dispersed.”
At midnight their serious work began as Cooper and the others quietly boarded the trains for Chickamauga Park. He recalled only one figure remained to bid them goodbye, an old Civil War veteran who shook every young man’s hand in Company A as he wiped away tears. As Cooper observed ominously, “He had been through it all himself for four years, and he — well, he knew.”
The trains of Michigan soldiers chugged through Ohio greeted by cheers, flag-waving children, and marching bands at nearly every station, as they were the first regiment to pass through the state. Cooper reported:
“In Cincinnati our reception was tumultuous. Thousands of people crowded around our trains and during the time that we remained there, between 5 and 6 p.m., the bells and whistles of hundreds of factories, locomotives and steamboats kept up a continual din. It was a deafening welcome.”
The 31st camped at Camp Thomas, Chicamauga Park, where they encountered a serious problem with typhoid fever. They would be sent to Cuba after the fighting to help maintain order on the island. The 32nd Regiment went to Tampa, Fla., and the 35th remained in Island Lake until Sept. 14, when they were sent to Camp Meade in Pennsylvania.
The 33rd and 34th regiments were shipped to Camp Alger, near Falls Church, Va., then on to Tampa where they boarded transport ships the Harvard and Paris, to be sent to Cuba to fight.
For the rest of the story, read Bill Loomis’s article.
Sources:
Michigan History
Bill Loomis, “‘Remember the Maine!’ Michigan men fight in the Spanish-American War”, Detroit News, January 5, 2014.
For more information about the Spanish-American War, see Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War, a History Tube documentary (116 minutes).
The first tank delivered from Detroit’s newest and largest defense plant was an M3, which weighed 30 tons and was produced at a rapid pace during World War II. Officials from both the Chrysler Corporation and the American military gathered in Warren, Michigan, to witness a demonstration in which the new tank fired its weapons, crashed through a telephone pole and destroyed a house. Due to its impressive production of weapons and vehicles needed for the fighting, the city of Detroit was often referred to as the “Arsenal of Democracy” during the war. Indeed, many historians have since demonstrated that the course of the war and its outcome were both significantly affected by the large production rates which were achieved in Detroit. By the end of World War II the Detroit Tank Arsenal produced more than twenty-two thousand tanks.
The M-3 Grant tanks were used by the British to fight the Germans and Italians in North Africa. Chrysler also made the Sherman tank, and was one of the primary military suppliers for the Allied war effort.
A Chrysler factory builds M-3 tanks during World War II.
For more information see
State of War: Michigan in WWII / Alan Clive. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c1979.
Detroit’s wartime industry : arsenal of democracy / Michael W.R. Davis. Charleston, SC : Arcadia Pub., c2007.
Ann M. Bos and Randy R. Talbot, “Enougn and On Time : The Story of the Detroit Arsenal“, Michigan History, March/April 2001.
Michigan Historical Calendar, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.
Bystanders near the Straits of Mackinac surely witnessed something remarkable on April 24, 1959.
That’s when Air Force Capt. John S. Lappo, a native of Muskegon, interrupted a calm Friday afternoon in the region by spontaneously flying a state-of-the-art Boeing B-47 jet underneath the Mackinac Bridge.
On this day in 1959, U.S. Air Force Captain John S. Lappo flew a RB-47E under the Mackinac Bridge. He was not permitted to fly for the airforce after that, but continued to serve for a total of thirty years. He retired with honors as a lieutenant colonel. He passed away in 2003.
According to an in-depth account of ordeal written by Danny K. Shepherd and posted by www.north-lights.com, Capt. Lappo and his crew were returning from a routine nighttime simulated bombing and celestial navigation mission when they emerged near the Mackinac Bridge.
Capt. Lappo, a veteran of countless dangerous missions, made a seemingly instant decision to fly the massive bomber underneath the bridge with just 155 feet of clearance.
Traveling at 425 mph with the help of his crew, Lappo navigated the plane above the whitecaps and emerged on the other side unscathed. He was later asked why he attempted such a risky stunt, according to Shepherd.
“Why do men climb mountains? Or what motivates them to go into space? It’s just a sense of adventure that some men have and some don’t,” he is quoted as saying in Shepherd’s article.
“I’ve always wanted to fly under a big bridge. I thought it would be the Golden Gate.”
The stunt was initially unreported but news eventually reached military brass. Unsurprisingly, the Air Force wasn’t thrilled with Lappo unnecessarily putting its expensive piece of military equipment at risk.
On August 10, 1959 it was preordained that he would be found guilty as charged at a general court-martial. He was accused of violating Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Specifically Air Force regulation 60-16, according to Shepherd. At that time, it stated, “Except during take-off and landing, aircraft will not be flown at less than 500 feet above the ground or water.”
Despite the court ruling, Lappo was supported by many in the military and retired at the rank of Lt. Col in 1972. He remained highly regarded for his service until his death from Parkinson’s disease on Nov. 15, 2003 at the age of 83.
Source: Brandon Champion, “Michigan Air Force pilot flew bomber under Mackinac Bridge on this day in 1959“, MLive, April 24, 2017.