Although Michigan State University claims 1855 as its founding date, the Michigan Agricultural College actually opened two years after the passage of the enabling act by the Michigan Legislature.
Before it officially opened, University of Michigan President Henry P. Tappan lobbied for his school to take over the 22 sections of land set aside for the new college. The lobbying attempt failed.
Classes were first held on May 14, 1857.
In 1857, students could only study agriculture. Now, they can choose from more than 150 majors. Total enrollment in 1857 amounted to 63 students, comparable the 45,998 enrolled in spring of 2012, according to the Office of the Registrar.
Sources :
Michigan Every Day
Kellie Rowe, MSU celebrates 155th birthday, State News, May 14, 2012.
George E. Ranney, Army Assistant Surgeon, Battle of Resaca, Georgia May 14, 1864, First Michigan Recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor
Citation:
At great personal risk, went to the aid of a wounded soldier, Pvt. Charles W. Baker, lying under heavy fire between the lines, and with the aid of an orderly carried him to a place of safety.
Born: June 13, 1839 at Batavia, NY
Entered Service in the US Army from Grand Rapids, MI
Earned The Medal of Honor During the Civil War For heroism May 14, 1864 at Resaca, GA
Died: November 10, 1915 at the age of 76
Buried:
Mt. Hope Cemetery Section F
1701 East Mt. Hope.
Lansing, MI
Earlier in the war Dr. Ranney was captured during the battle of Chickamauga and sent to the infamous Confederate prison camp Libby where he stayed for 44 days. While there he continued treating wounded soldiers until he was released. His war efforts were not done however.
During Union General Sherman’s march to the sea the Confederate forces under General Johnson fell back rapidly, but stiffened their resolve to make a stand at Resaca, Georgia, on May 13 – 16, 1864 during which eight men earned Medals of Honor. In action against these rebel forces on May 14, Assistant Surgeon George Ranney was one of five men cited for his heroism. Private Charles Baker, a Union soldier, fell wounded between the lines of fire and lay in a place of great danger. With an orderly, Assistant Surgeon Ranney braved the continuing heavy fire of both sides to go out on the battle field and carry Private Baker to safety.
Plaque on headstone reads:
Dr. George E. Ranney served in the civil war of 1861-5 as private hospital steward, assistant surgeon, and surgeon of the 2nd Michigan Cavalry, as brigade surgeon, division surgeon, and surgeon of the Cavalry Corps of the military division of Mississippi.
Was awarded congressional medals of honor, bronze and gold, for “most
distinguished gallantry;” held hostage in Libby Prison 1863.
He was one of the founders of the Michigan State Medical Society in 1866 and its Secretary twenty years; elected Honorary Member of same 1886 and President 1891. Was Honorary Member of other medical bodies; a member of The American Medical and British Medical Associations; Fellow of the British Gynecological Association; member Michigan State Board of Registration of Medicine; State Inspector of Communicable Diseases; President U. S. Pension Board for Lansing; Surgeon Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and Pere Marquette Railways, and Division Surgeon Grand Trunk Railway; author of many medical papers, one in 1874, first showing bad water the prolific cause of typhoid fever.
One June 23, 2014, another historical marker will be unveiled at Ranney Softball Park near Frandor. Not only was Ranney one of Lansing’s leading surgeons and a Civil War hero, he donated the park to the city in 1915.
Reminiscences of an army surgeon / by companion Geo. E. Ranney. 1897. Available at the Library of Michigan.
Lawrence Cosentino, Ripped, Soiled, and Battered”, Lansing City Pulse, June 18, 2014.
Portrait and Biographical Album Ingham & Livingston Counties
Michigan, p. 225
On this day in 1866, the Holland Academy, created in 1851 and supported by the Dutch Reformed Church, was chartered as Hope College. The first graduating class, eight men, made up more than one-third of the 21-person student body. During the 2010-11 academic year, Hope College enrolled more than 3,200. It went co-ed in 1878.
Hope College has been transforming lives for 150 years.
This calls for a celebration.
We’re marking our sesquicentennial across 2015–16. The year-long commemoration, which started with Hope’s 150th Commencement on Sunday, May 3, 2015, will lead up to the 150th anniversary of the college’s formal chartering by the State of Michigan on May 14, 1866.
The occasion is a time for all of us at Hope College to reflect on our past — and look forward to our future.
However, don’t forget that Hope College story actually started 15 years earlier. with the October 1851 creation of the Holland colony’s Pioneer School. The Pioneer School eventually evolved into the Holland Academy and then the college as the community’s educational needs progressed from elementary to secondary to higher.
Sources :
“This week in Michigan history: Hope College in Holland is incorporated”, Detroit Free Press, May 13, 2012.
Gregory Olgers, “Birthday Bash“, Campus News, August 14, 2016.
The history of the Portage Lake Channel
It began as little more than a 4-foot wide by 2-foot deep ditch, but in the early morning hours of May 14, 1871, before any light of the new day, it became much more.
Approximately 30 men, nearly all of them homesteaders with land abutting Portage Lake, had spent two weeks digging the cut. It was only 500 yards long, but that relatively short distance fails to tell the entire story. Most of that distance was through a mature forest so dense only shovels, picks and axes could be used to dig.
It’s fair to ask why would anyone care? The answer brings us to the crux of the problem. The Chicago-based Porter & Company owned and operated a sawmill located at the northwest corner of Portage Lake.
The sawmill’s saw was driven by a water wheel that depended upon water from Portage Creek which was, at that time, the only natural outlet between Portage Lake and Lake Michigan. Left to its natural condition Portage Creek would never have been powerful enough to drive a sawmill. But Porter & Company dammed it up, much to the dismay of the farmers around Portage Lake.
The dam caused that lake to rise some 12 to 14 feet above its normal level and that flooded out valuable farmland. Adding to the farmers’ misery, when the sawmill opened the dam to utilize the water, the lake level lowered slowly and pockets of stagnate water formed to breed mosquitoes which carried a malaria-like illness the farmers called the ague.
The homesteaders took the lumbermen to court and won … almost. On May 25, 1870, Circuit Court Judge J.G. Ramsdell issued an injunction against Porter & Company that should have stopped the damming.
The writ allowed the mill seven months to cease and desist. However, due to a technicality in the way the writ was written, the injunction was never properly served. The spring of 1871 saw Porter & Company continue to dam Portage Creek, long after the writ’s grace period expired.
The irate farmers threatened to take matters into their own hands until cooler heads prevailed. Their restraint kept the law on the farmers’ side, even though the injunction was doing nothing to protect their interests or their health.
It is at this point they made the decision to make their own cut anticipating a gently flowing stream similar to what Portage Creek had been prior to the lumbermen’s damming of it.
The southwest corner of the mile-long isthmus between Portage Lake and Lake Michigan was its narrowest segment and it was here that the farmers planned to dig the cut between the two lakes.
This parcel of land was owned at the time by Theodore Heiss. There is no record that the farmers sought Heiss’s permission to dig the cut, but neither is there any record that Heiss objected. The answer to the question is left to the reader.
The men who dug the ditch along with their families reveled on the evening of May 13, 1871, as the cut neared its completion after two weeks of back breaking labor.
At some time after midnight, but before first light on May 14, the farmers’ bulwark holding back Portage Lake was pulled down and the “little ditch” they’d dug became a raging torrent of water.
In a matter of minutes, it grew to over a hundred feet wide and 10 to 12 feet deep, sweeping an entire forest 2 to 3 miles out into Lake Michigan.
The revelers, standing entirely too close, suddenly fled in terror from the ever-widening torrent of raging water. It is amazing that no lives were lost in that early morning’s darkness.
The sawmill closed and along with it so did the settlement of Portage, but the Village of Onekama sprang up just a few miles east along Portage Lake. Over the next 20 years the farmers’ cut succumbed to Lake Michigan’s relentless winds and waves.
In 1892 it was too shallow to be navigable when the schooner The City of Toledo foundered in a storm a few miles west of Portage Lake. The vessel and all hands were lost because the ship could not make safe harbor.
In 1893, Congress finally put money toward maintaining the channel and Portage Lake again became a safe harbor. Today, it is one of the most beautiful safe harbor channels on the Lake Michigan shoreline and certainly one with a rich and fascinating history.
Source : John Wemlinger, “The history of the Portage Lake Channel“, Manistee News Advocate, July 7, 2021.
“The work of the Michigan Humane Society is of a sort that no city in civilized America can afford to be without.” – Abner E. Larned, 1935
A LOOK BACK TO 1877
On May 14, 1877, concerned citizens in Detroit gathered together to form the Michigan Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA). A relatively new phenomenon at the time, the MSPCA was part of a growing trend that had begun in London with the founding of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and in New York as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
In the years since 1877, though the name would change, the organization’s dedication never would. From the Gilded Age, to the Roaring ’20s and the Great Depression; from Detroit’s post-war boom years, to the riots of 1967 and the challenges that have troubled the city in the decades since, the Michigan Humane Society (MHS) has been a fixture in the community, holding true to the promise we made back all those years ago: That no matter what, we always would work to alleviate animal suffering.
The Michigan Humane Society name was taken in the 1920s, following the consolidation of several older humane organizations, including the Detroit Humane Society and the Animal Welfare Association. As time passed, the Michigan Humane Society dramatically grew and expanded under the leadership and with the support of some of the state of Michigan’s best and brightest, including former senators, mayors, community and business leaders, and concerned citizens – with names such as Ford, Cody, Palmer, Larned, Ledyard, Cavanaugh. Driving through the city of Detroit today, the street names read as a veritable who’s who of people involved with the Michigan Humane Society over the years.
Today, the Michigan Humane Society’s reach extends far beyond Detroit. As the state’s oldest and largest humane organization, MHS has become a nationally recognized leader in animal welfare due to the wide scope of our programs and services, our fidelity to our mission to prevent cruelty, and a philosophy of constant improvement: always looking for ways we can better serve the animals and communities that rely on us. Though the world of 2012 might look much different than that of 1877, one thing that hasn’t changed is the need for organizations such as MHS.
PROTECTING THOSE WHO CANNOT HELP THEMSELVES
In the early years, the organization’s mission included the protection of women and children, as well as providing many services to dogs, cats and other animals. However, much of the Society’s early work combating cruelty was concerned with the needs of the more than 68,000 horses working in the city of Detroit. Overwork and cruelty to horses was a common occurrence. The organization responded by providing water fountains for workhorses, a rest farm for horses at the corner of Inkster and Michigan Avenue, and when the situation called for it, the use of a specially designed horse ambulance.
In 1913, Arthur C. Curtis, who would be-come the organization’s first paid employee, was named Humane Marshal by Michigan Governor Woodbridge N. Ferris, and given statewide authority to investigate charges of animal cruelty.
Curtis was Michigan’s very first “Animal Cop,” investigating reports of cruelty, inspecting horses and livestock and, when the situation required it, rescuing animals. During his 40 years of service, Curtis investigated thousands of cases of animal cruelty of all kinds, resulting in fines, prosecutions and in some cases, imprisonment for the perpetrators. As time went on and the use of horses declined, MHS’ focus shifted more toward companion animals – dogs, cats and other domesticated pets. The need was rising. In 1947, 43,000 animals passed through MHS, in large part because of our response to 26,739 ambulance calls, 2,415 emergency rescue calls and 1,076 cruelty investigations. By the late 1960s, horse rescue calls in the city were becoming rare.
Even during the riots of 1967, MHS was there helping animals affected by the crisis. Working around the clock, MHS set up an Emergency Animal Relief Station to care for injured and homeless animals. MHS staff stayed at the shelter, and MHS veterinarians, assisted by the National Guard, provided first aid for animals injured in the riots. MHS also provided 5,000 cans of dog and cat food for animals in the area.
For a century, MHS cruelty investigators have been quietly and diligently working on the front lines of animal welfare in Detroit. Sadly, they are no less needed today, as our small team of professionals expertly investigates more than 5,000 cruelty cases each year. In May 2002, they received international attention with the debut of the Animal Planet series, “Animal Cops: Detroit.” Featuring current Chief Cruelty Investigator Debby MacDonald, Investigator Mark Ramos, and the rest of the MHS cruelty investigation and rescue team, the series documented the struggles facing animals in Detroit every day – abuse, neglect, dog fighting, hoarding and abandonment. The series was an instant hit with viewers and continues to be rebroadcast to this day.
ANIMAL ADOPTIONS
In the 1920s, MHS placed a greater emphasis on animal adoptions. In 1925, the shelter facility was a leased building at 7378 Richmond (a street that today is known as the Chrysler Expressway service drive). In 1931, MHS purchased and renovated the former Detroit Piston Ring factory at 7401 Richmond, which is still functioning today as MHS’ Detroit shelter location, thanks to several face-lifts. Over the years, MHS has adopted nearly 500,000 animals into loving homes!
For decades, MHS held an annual Horse Christmas Party to celebrate the city of Detroit’s horses and the people who properly cared for them. Awards were given for the best-kept horse, and the horses in attendance were provided with apples and other treats. As urban areas such as Detroit had transitioned away from a reliance on workhorses, MHS held its last horse party in 1971.
FRIENDS OF MHS
Over the years, MHS has enjoyed the support of many prominent individuals who took an interest in the organization’s mission.
The Ford name has a long history here in Michigan and that includes generosity toward animals. In 1935, Edsel Ford contributed to the purchase of a new animal ambulance trailer for the organization while Henry Ford served on the MHS Board of Directors. The Ford family also donated a parcel of land that was used as a rest farm for workhorses.
Michigan’s Governor William Milliken was a friend to MHS and provided much-needed legislative support during his time in office. He also dropped in during MHS’ 1975 “Pick-A-Pup” adoption event at Pontiac Mall.
It just so happened that when MHS turned 100, a Michigan man was in the White House! President Gerald Ford, joined by his dog, Liberty, sent his well-wishes on MHS’ 100th anniversary in 1977.
Michigan’s Lieutenant Governor Martha Griffiths was a staunch supporter of animals and fought tirelessly against the exploitation of any living being. In a 1984 interview with MHS, Griffiths said, “Anyone that is cruel to life in one form is capable of cruelty to life in any form.” She also stressed the importance of community involvement with the legislature. “People need to know what bills are under consideration in Congress or in their state legislatures that affect their pets and other animals.”
MHS has a long history of engagement with Detroit’s mayoral office. When the Society’s first board of directors was chosen, Alexander Lewis, then mayor, was elected vice president. In the 1960s, after MHS created a hotline for lost pets, L-O-S-T-D-O-G, the first call was placed by Mayor Jerome Cavanaugh.
LEGISLATION
MHS also has a long history of developing humane legislation to better protect animals statewide, as well as developing harsher penalties for animal abusers. The passage of critical animal protection legislation often has taken years of effort and setbacks, introductions and reintroductions.
One of the Society’s first legislative successes was the passing in 1911 of a bill prohibiting the trafficking of old and worn-out workhorses. Sponsored by State Rep. Ward Copley, a lifetime supporter of the Society, the bill made it unlawful for any person to offer for sale or sell any horse deemed permanently unfit for work.
Over the last few decades, MHS’ legislative successes in Lansing have resulted in large part from the dedication and passion of the organization’s now-retired legislative lobbyist, Eileen Liska, who worked toward the passage of several key bills on MHS’ behalf.
In the final weeks of the 1995-96 legislative session, Governor John Engler signed into law three new bills that dramatically strengthened Michigan’s anticruelty laws into some of the strongest in the nation. Consequently:
- A person who kills their own animal or a stray animal can be charged with a felony.
- Juveniles who commit an act of animal cruelty must undergo a mental health evaluation.
- Dog fighting, cockfighting, observing such fighting, or breeding and training animals for such fighting is a felony offense.
- Judges can prevent abusers from ever owning an animal again. With the need for stronger sterilization policies to reduce pet overpopulation, MHS ensured they were written into state law. After years of work, and a veto in December 1995, a bill requiring sterilization of all animals being adopted from shelters in Michigan was finally signed into law in 1997 by Governor Engler.
During the 1990s, MHS experienced a spike in the number of large exotic cats that had been taken from people who had not figured out that these are wild animals and are neither pets nor guard dogs – animals such as lions, cougars and servals.
In 2000, after a prolonged effort in Lansing, MHS celebrated the passage of a ban on private ownership of large exotic cats and similar legislation banning the ownership of wolf hybrids and bears.
Today, MHS is pushing for laws to further strengthen the penalties for dogfighters, prevent puppy mills from setting up shop here in Michigan and more. Michigan is one of the national leaders in humane laws, but there’s always more work to be done, and MHS will continue its strong and effective leadership role in this area.
MHS IN THE COMMUNITY
Along with providing lifesaving services to animals in need, much of MHS’ daily work in the community is educating and promoting greater awareness of animal issues. Through adoption counseling, cruelty investigation, presenting adoptable pets in broadcast and print media, special events and, of course, humane education presentations, MHS has for decades taken a leadership role in promoting humane values.
Recognizing that children are the future of animal welfare, MHS started its humane education program in 1925 and, since then, has reached tens of thousands of students, scouting and other youth organizations, with lessons on responsible pet ownership, respect for animals, and safety around animals.
For many years, MHS has provided low-cost programs to help low-income pet owners keep their beloved pets. In 1991, MHS began offering an annual series of high-volume Protect-a-Pet clinics. Since their inception, the clinics have provided thousands of vaccinations annually to help keep those pets – and others in the community – safe from a number of deadly diseases. In recent years, low-cost microchipping services were added to the clinics.
In 1993, MHS co hosted the inaugural spring Meet Your Best Friend at the Zoo pet adoption event in partnership with the Detroit Zoological Society. It was an instant success, and in 2001, a fall event was added. MHS welcomes animal welfare groups from across Michigan to participate in this, the largest event of its kind in the country.
With the ever-critical need for community sup-port, many of MHS’ largest annual events have been fundraisers, including the Mutt March, which began in 1989; the Bow Wow Brunch, in 1990; the Telethon, in 1997; and the Mega March for Animals – the largest walk for animals in Michigan – in 2006.
As in yesteryear, today’s MHS relies on community support to change animal lives.
MHS IN 2012 AND BEYOND
Today, your Michigan Humane Society is a strong, vibrant and constantly evolving organization that provides programs and services reaching tens of thousands of animals in Detroit and well beyond each year. Our founders surely would look with respect on what MHS has become today.
But that does not mean that MHS is resting on its laurels. MHS constantly is looking for ways to improve the services we provide to the community and the animals that need us every single day. We are in the preliminary planning stages on a brand-new Detroit Center for Animal Care. We’re continually building on our efforts to reduce the numbers of unwanted animals with bold, new sterilization programs, adding to the more than 270,000 animals that MHS has sterilized over the past 20 years.
But most importantly, we are working every day through our preventative efforts in the community to lower the number of animals who cannot be placed into a loving home. We’re also hard at work on efforts to lower the number of unadoptable animals coming to animal shelters and rescue groups – animals who are too sick, injured or temperamentally unsound. Too many animals in our community spend their lives without proper socialization, appropriate veterinary care, or ample food, water and shelter. Too often, we see dogs living on the end of a chain, forced to endure the bitter cold and extreme heat with nary a comforting word or a kind gesture.
Within the next few years, our foremost goal is to provide guaranteed placement of every single healthy and treatable animal that comes into MHS – either in a loving home or with a rescue partner organization.
Solving these and the other critical problems we face – pet overpopulation, cruelty and more – will require a community-wide effort. It’s something that’s bigger than any one organization or any one group. But it’s an effort that MHS continues to lead as part of the promise we made all those years ago – back when Rutherford Hayes was president and a ballet called “Swan Lake” was making its debut – a promise that means a bright new future for all animals in Michigan.
Source : Michigan Humane Society
Sophie Kurys, the ‘Flint Flash,’ was born on this day in 1925. She would steal 1114 bases in her 8-year career with the Racine Belles. In 1946 she was named Player of the Year for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League when, in 113 games, she not only had 112 hits, scored 117 runs, and hit .286, she also stole 201 bases out of 203 attempts (a record that remains unsurpassed – the MLB record is 130). And she did it all in a skirt on gravel infields. As Sophie herself told the press, “They wanted us to look like Marilyn Monroe and play like Joe DiMaggio.”
In the picture below, she slides into home as catcher Ruth “Tex’ Lessings (Grand Rapids Chicks) tries to tag her out.
The Ford Rotunda was originally built as an exhibit building for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, known as the Century of Progress Exposition.
After the fair closed, Ford had the Rotunda disassembled and moved to Dearborn, Michigan, where it took 18 months to rebuild on a site directly across from Ford Motor Company’s Central Office Building, Ford’s “World Headquarters” of the time.
The Rotunda was opened to the public in Dearborn on May 14, 1936, and immediately became a top attraction.
During World War II, the Rotunda was closed to the public, and underwent extensive remodeling in 1952, at which time the center courtyard section was enclosed by the addition of a geodesic dome roof section weighing 18,000 pounds. The Rotunda reopened to the public on June 16, 1953, as part of Ford’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. A highlight of this celebration included 50 huge Birthday candles, mounted and lit along the rim of the Rotunda.
The ultra-modern Rotunda was a huge attraction, becoming the fifth most popular United States tourist destination during the 1950s. In fact, only Niagara Falls, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, The Smithsonian Institution, and the Lincoln Memorial were more popular. Yellowstone, Mount Vernon, the Washington Monument, and the Statue of Liberty all received less visitors.
The annual Christmas Fantasy held during the Holiday season was partially responsible for the Rotunda’s popularity, with nearly a half million people visiting during 1953, the very first year it was held. A giant Christmas tree was always a spectacular thing to see, and the Christmas Fantasy became more spectacular each year. Highlights from various years included animated characters from children’s stories, a 1/2″ per foot scale 15,000-piece miniature circus with 800 animals, 30 tents, and 435 toy figurines of circus performers and customers. In all, nearly 6 million people visited the Christmas Fantasy during the nine years it was held at the Rotunda.
Ford always utilized the popularity of the Rotunda to call attention to new model introductions, and as a special place to photograph its automobiles and hold special events. The Edsel would become one of Ford’s few marketing mistakes, being introduced in a depressed economy in the late 1950s, at about the time when Americans began to want smaller, more economical cars. The dawn of the American compact car was about to begin. Ford discontinued the Edsel shortly after the 1960 model year introductions were held, making the Edsel available for just over 2 years.
With work well under way to make the 1962 Christmas Fantasy the best one ever, tragedy struck. Shortly after 1 p.m. on Friday, November 9, 1962, an employee inside the Rotunda noticed smoke and flames up near the roof. Roof repairmen were up on the roof weatherproofing the geodesic dome panels with a transparent waterproof sealer. The sealer was being heated to make it easier to spray, and the flammable vapors ignited accidentally from a propane heater that was in use on the roof. Once the sealer caught fire, the fire spread quickly, and within minutes the entire roof structure was on fire. The composite plastic and fiberglass materials supported by an aluminum frame burned quickly. Workers on the roof scurried down to safety, while the alarm was sounded and the Rotunda was evacuated. Even though the Fire Department arrived quickly, it was too late to save the building. The roof of the building collapsed before the firemen arrived, and several firemen barely escaped when the tops of the walls started to fall. Once the fire reached the highly combustible Christmas Fantasy display which was being set up, it was out of control. Flames shot 50 feet in the air, and thick smoke could be seen for miles.
During the period of time the Rotunda was open to the public, a total of 18,019,340 people toured the facility. The Rotunda saw the introduction of the Lincoln Continental, the Ford Thunderbird, and both the introduction and discontinuance of the Edsel.
All that was saved of the Christmas Fantasy was the Christmas tree itself, which hadn’t been placed in the Rotunda at the time, and the miniature circus figurines and props, which were still packed away from the previous year. The Nativity scene, for which Ford had received a commendation in 1958 from the National Council of Churches for emphasizing the true spirit of Christmas, and which the Council had determined to be the largest display of its kind in the United States, was a total loss.
It was estimated that it would have taken $15 million to rebuild the Ford Rotunda. Ford chose not to.
A sad end for a building that was filled with many happy memories, and was one of the most famous buildings in the world during its time.
Sources :
Michigan Every Day.
Ford Rotunda : Glory and Tragedy
Ford Rotunda from Michigan In pictures, December 12, 2009.
Jenny Nolan, “When flames consumed a Christmas fantasy”, Detroit News, June 13, 1996.
Gov. Gretchen WHITMER today announced Michigan is lifting mask requirements for vaccinated people in all settings, following the updated federal guidance issued Thursday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Thursday that “fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance,” the Governor said in a press release.
The updated gatherings and mask order will go into effect Saturday at 9 a.m.
Under the updated order, Michiganders who are outdoors will no longer need to wear a mask regardless of vaccination status. While indoors, fully vaccinated Michiganders will no longer need to wear a mask, but residents who are not vaccinated, or have not completed their vaccinations, must continue to wear a mask or face covering to protect themselves and others.
After July 1, the broad indoor mask mandate will expire, according to the press release.
Source : MIRS News Release, May 14, 2021/
L. Frank Baum reads while sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of his Macatawa summer home, nicknamed The Sign of the Goose.
L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was born on May 15, 1856. The Holland Sentinel has an excellent feature on Baum’s Michigan connection.
For his family and friends, he was always known as Frank. As an actor and playwright, he was known as Louis F. Baum. As a newspaper editor, he was known as L. F. Baum. And a one of the most popular children’s book authors ever, he was known as L. Frank Baum. But in the resort community of Macatawa, however, Baum was known by another name: “The Goose Man.”
The Wizard of Oz rolled off the presses on May 17, 1900, but Baum actually had the top selling children’s book of the year one year earlier:
In 1899, Baum published “Father Goose: His Book.” The collection of children’s poems exploded in popularity and provided Baum with wealth and prestige for the first time in his life, his great-grandson, Bob Baum, recalled.
The author used the profits from his book to rent a large, multi-story Victorian summer home nestled on the southern end of the Macatawa peninsula on Lake Michigan.
The home, which he eventually purchased, came to be known as the Sign of the Goose, an ever-present reminder of the fame that came along with “Father Goose.”
Members of the MSU community can read the complete text of Father Goose right here. Others may have to try interlibrary loan.
Here’s a link to Baum’s 1907 novel Tamawaca Folks: A Summer Comedy, lampooning the resort community.
Also see the Oz Club Facebook page for all kinds of photos & history.
Sources:
L. Frank Baum, The Goose Man of Macatawa , Absolute Michigan.
Children begged for more and Frank Baum delivered, with 13 sequels to “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”. Martin Chalakoski, Vintage News, April 17, 2018
When Ty Cobb was suspended for beating up a heckler during a game with the New York Highlanders (soon to be Yankees) on May 15, 1912, the rest of the team refused to play the next scheduled game. However, the Tiger’s management signed up replacement players so the game went on. The Tigers watched from the stands on May 18 but returned to play the next game.
Sources :
Michigan History, May/June 2011.
“Cobb Not Reinstated; Tigers Quit Field”, Detroit Free Press Sporting Section, May 19, 1912.
For another account, see Baseball’s First Strike, Philly Sport History, May 18, 2011.