On April 25, 2014, Flint mayor Dayne Walling pushed a small black button and set in motion one of the worst disasters in Michigan history. Facing bankruptcy, and under the direction of a state-appointed emergency manager, the city had decided to switch its water supply to the Flint River to save money. We all know what happened next. Dangerous levels of lead turned up in the water, poisoning children. An outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease killed at least 12 people. The Flint Water Crisis became a global outrage.
Source: Dustin Dwyer, Michigan in the 2010s, Michigan Radio, December 17, 2019.
April 26, 1775: Michigan’s first regulations on the distribution of liquor require Detroit merchants to sell no more than one glass of liqour at a time to Indians.
Source : The Historical Society of Michigan
Detroit took its first census on the orders of the British commandant, Henry Hamilton, on April 26, 1778.
According to this tally, Detroit’s population stood at 2,144 people, excluding military personnel and prisoners.
Source : Michigan Historical Calendar, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.
However, at least one census was conducted earlier while Detroit was under French control. A “Census of the Inhabitants of Detroit on September 1, 1750” is reported in Lajeunesse, ed., The Windsor Border Region: Canada’s Southernmost Frontier; a collection of documents, 54-56. A partial translation is provided in Donna Valley Russell, ed., Michigan Censuses 1710-1830 under the French, British, and Americans (Detroit, 1928), p. 15-17 (available at the Library of Michigan and the Michigan Archives). Also mentioned in Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France According to the census conducted in 1750, more than a quarter of the 96 French families there owned Indian slaves, who constituted about 7% of the enumerated population.
In the early 19th century, tensions grew as both Ohio and Michigan territory claimed the Port of Maumee. Residents of the area demanded that the government resolve the border dispute. U.S. Surveyor General Edward Tiffin (a former Ohio Governor) hired William Harris to survey the border using the Ohio Constitution line. Unhappy with the resulting “Harris Line”, Michigan Territory governor Lewis Cass ordered his own survey by John Fulton using the Ordinance line. The 5 to 8 mile wide area between the Lewis line and the Fulton line became known as the Toledo Strip. Michigan quietly settled the Strip, building roads and setting up municipalities. By 1833, Michigan had enough residents to request statehood from Congress but Congress, under pressure from the Ohio delegation, turned down the request due to Michigan’s occupation of the Toledo Strip. In early 1835, the Ohio legislators set up county governments all along the strip including Toledo, further goading Michigan. Michigan’s hot-head governor Stevens Mason passed a law making any government action in the Strip by Ohio illegal and sent in the Michigan militia to enforce it. Ohio responded by sending in militia of its own, igniting the Toledo War.
President Andrew Jackson, anxious to avoid armed conflict, sent two representatives from Washington to negotiate a temporary agreement between the two sides while Congress decided the fate of the Toledo Strip. The talks resulted in a re-survey of the Harris line. The new survey proceeded without incident until the survey team was attacked by 50 to 60 members of the Michigan militia at Phillips Corners on April 26, 1835. Shots were fired over the heads of the survey team who turned tail and ran into the woods. The Battle of Phillips Corners enraged both sides, heating the conflict to the brink of war. Over the next year, there would be many skirmishes and minor bloodshed but no resolution. Finally, on July 15th, 1836, President Jackson signed a bill admitting Michigan to the Union under the condition that the Toledo Strip went to Ohio. In exchange, Michigan got the Upper Peninsula, a seemingly worthless piece of wilderness. Michigan, out of money thanks to the high cost of the militia, agreed to the deal. On January 26, 1837, Michigan was admitted to the Union without the Toledo Strip.
Source:
John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. As the nation grieved, a hunt for the killer ensued. Luther Byron Baker’s cousin, Lafayette Baker (also from Lansing) headed the Secret Service investigation, with Luther and Everton J. Conger assisting him. Once they picked up Booth’s trail, they set out in pursuit. Members of the 16th New York Cavalry, commanded by Lt. Edward Doherty, accompanied them.
On the morning of April 26, 1865, the team found Booth and a young accomplice, David Herold, hiding in a Virginia barn. According to Luther Baker’s account (A copy is in the Archives of Michigan.), Luther told Booth “…surrender, or we shall burn the barn and have a bonfire and a shooting match.” Herold surrendered, but Booth refused. The cavalry set the barn afire, but he remained inside. The soldiers could see him through knotholes, and finally, Sergeant Boston Corbett of the 16th New York Cavalry obtained a good view of the assassin. Acting against orders, Corbett shot Booth in the neck, mortally wounding him.
Luther Baker’s personal account of the events – written in 1886 and delivered by him in lectures – can be perused at the Archives of Michigan.
Source: Bob Garrett, “A Bonfire and a Shooting Match”, Seeking Michigan, May 5, 2009.
On April 26, 1963, the Michigan Legislature presented its final approval to a bill mandating auto manufacturers to equip all cars with seat belts after Jan. 1, 1965. At the time, safety authorities estimated that wide use of seat belts could save 5,000 lives annually.
Source : MIRS Capitol Capsule, April 26, 1963.
On the night of April 26, 1977, the residents of Grand Haven looked westward across the relatively cold waters of Lake Michigan and saw city lights and a flashing red beacon. But the nearest urban area westward from them was Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 75 miles away, well below the geometric horizon and thus normally not visible. Their sightings were later confirmed to have been Milwaukee when a Grand Haven resident timed the blink rate of the flashing red light and linked it to the Milwaukee Harbor entrance beacon. US Weather Service records also confirm that strong inversion conditions were indeed present that night. The unseeable had indeed briefly become visible.
The arctic mirage generally forms under conditions of a uniform and widespread temperature inversion. When the temperature rises at a rate of 6 degrees Fahrenheit per 100 feet, the Earth’s horizon will appear flat. If the inversion becomes stronger, the horizon will then appear to rise vertically from the flat position. Thus, when the inversion gradient reaches 10 degrees Fahrenheit per 100 ft, the horizon appears to turn upward to the observer.
For more information about Arctic Mirages, please visit: http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/elements/supmrge.htm
The objects displayed in Michigan’s newest museum range from the ordinary, such as simple ashtrays and fishing lures, to the grotesque — a full-size replica of a lynching tree. But all are united by a common theme: They are steeped in racism so intense that it makes visitors cringe.
That’s the idea behind the “Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia”, which says it has amassed the nation’s largest public collection of artifacts spanning the segregation era, from Reconstruction until the civil rights movement, and beyond.
The museum in a gleaming new exhibit hall at Ferris State University “is all about teaching, not a shrine to racism,” said David Pilgrim, the founder and curator who started building the collection as a teenager.
The mission of the Jim Crow Museum is to use objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice. The museum features six exhibit areas — Who and What is Jim Crow, Jim Crow Violence, Jim Crow and Anti-Black Imagery, Battling Jim Crow Imagery, Attacking Jim Crow Segregation, and Beyond Jim Crow.
Where: 1010 Campus Drive, Big Rapids.
Cost: Free.
Hours: Noon-5 p.m. Monday through Friday; group tours by appointment.
Information: Call 231-591-5873, visit http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow or e-mail jimcrowmuseum@ferris.edu.
Sources :
Mike Householder, “Racist memorabilia museum opens at Ferris State University”, Lansing State Journal, April 20, 2012.
John Carlisle, “Museum’s collection of racist kitsch meant to spur dialogue”, Detroit Free Press, March 10, 2013, plus video
Michigan is one of seven states that will lose a congressional seat in 2022, dropping the representation in the U.S. House from this state to 13, as the results of the 2020 Census Apportionment were delivered today to President Joe Biden.
Other states losing a seat include California, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Texas will gain two seats.
Five states will gain one seat each — Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon.
The population for Michigan was pegged at 10,084,442 by the Census.
Source : MIRS Capitol Capsule, April 26, 2021.