Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, including massive coastal sand dunes on the Lake Michigan shore and North and South Manitou Islands, is established.
An old Chippewa Indian legend says that the dunes were created when a mother bear and her two cubs fled a forest fire in Wisconsin by swimming across Lake Michigan. The mother bear arrived first and climbed up on a bluff to wait for her cubs. Sadly, the exhausted cubs drowned, and when the mourning mother died, the Great Spirit Manitou marked her resting place with a single forested dune called Sleeping Bear. Her two cubs are the Manitou Islands.
Today, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore encompasses a thirty-five mile stretch of Lake Michigan’s eastern coastline, as well as North and South Manitou Islands. The park was established primarily for its outstanding natural features, including forests, beaches, dune formations, and ancient glacial phenomena. In 2002, nearly 1.2 millions people visited the park, which has an annual bugdet of around 3.3 million dollars.
For more information about the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park, see Sleeping Bear: Yesterday and Today, Including Ghost Towns, Lighthouses and Shipwrecks of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore by George Weeks.
Sources :
Michigan Historical Calendar courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.
Michigan History, September/October 2011.
Sleeping Bear Dunes official website.
Michigan State 41, Northwestern 38 (Oct. 21, 2006) – 35 points
Via Sporting News: Under then-coach John Smith, Michigan State engineered the largest comeback in college football history against Northwestern. The Spartans opened the game with a field goal before the Wildcats tallied 38 unanswered to take a 35-point advantage with 9:54 left in the third quarter. But on their next possession, Spartans quarterback Drew Stanton led a nine-play, 65-yard drive to start shifting momentum back in his team’s favor. Over the next 22 minutes, Michigan State’s defense forced four three-and-outs and two interceptions to give the Spartans a chance to kick a game-winning field goal with 13 seconds remaining.
The University of Michigan welcomed its largest-ever class of first-year students this fall, helping to push the Ann Arbor campus’ overall student body to more than 50,000 students for the first time in the university’s history.
The new class also is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse classes in years, with 37 percent of first-year students identifying as persons of color.
The record-setting enrollment caps an admissions season marked by skyrocketing student interest and the ongoing global pandemic.
Nearly 80,000 prospective first-year students applied to enroll at U-M this fall — nearly 15,000 more than the previous year — creating the largest applicant pool in the university’s history.
From this fall’s 79,743 applications, U-M offered admission to 16,071 first-year students.
Of those admitted, 75 percent of in-state students and a third of out-of-state students eventually enrolled, creating a first-year class of 7,290 students. The class is more than 400 students — or 6 percent — larger than last year’s class.
Total undergraduate enrollment increased by 3 percent over last fall, from 31,329 to 32,282 students. In-state students account for 52 percent of the overall undergraduate student body. Graduate and professional school enrollment also grew, from 16,578 last fall to 17,996 this year, the highest total in U-M history.
Source : Don Jordan, “U-M’s 2021 fall enrollment tops 50,000 for first time”, University Record, October 21, 2021.
Chelsea is incorporated on this day in 1864.
Settled in 1834, this Washtenaw County community was first called Kedron until it was renamed after Chelsea, Massachusetts.
Source : Michigan History magazine, October 2003.
Michigan’s first attempt at a live mascot was carried off by no less a tradition-builder than Fielding Yost himself, longtime head football coach (1901-1923, 1925-1926) and athletic director (1921-1941), first at the Michigan Stadium Dedication Game against Ohio State (Oct. 22, 1927) and again when Michigan played Navy that season.
Yost was a visionary but he was also a competitor. He built Michigan Stadium so that, some day, it could be expanded to fit some 300,000 football fans. (Michigan Stadium is not even halfway there more than eight decades later.) And Yost’s competitive nature drove him to pursue a live mascot for the Wolverines football team.
The rival Wisconsin Badgers had wowed fans by using a live badger to rally support back in 1923. Almost immediately Yost set about one-upping the team from Madison by bringing in a live, caged wolverine. Two of them, actually, Bennie and Biff.
“Today, for the first time in the annals of Michigan gridiron history, a Maize and Blue team will take the field of battle with two live Wolverines as mascots on the sidelines,” the Michigan Daily declared the morning of Oct. 22, 1927, the day of the dedication game. The wolverines were a gift of two Detroit-based alums, Fred Lawton and Clark Hyatt, both of the Class of 1911.
“Up until today,” the article continued, “Michigan teams have had a mascot, and that mascot was a wolverine, a mounted one that has graced the trophy case in the administration building at Ferry Field for some time.”
The plan was for the wolverines — Bennie and Biff — to be walked around on leashes. And when Michigan faced Navy that November, the wolverines were going to meet Navy’s mascot, a live goat, at midfield. But Biff and Bennie proved too vicious for any of that.
The live wolverines were a disaster. When Biff was first placed into his cage a week before the game, he snapped a bar in two with his teeth. Said Yost of the wolverine experiment, which ended after that first season: “It was obvious that the Michigan mascots had designs on the Michigan men toting them, and those designs were by no means friendly.” After the season, Bennie was sent to the Detroit Zoo while Biff was placed in the now-defunct University of Michigan Zoo.
For the full article, see James David Dickson, “The wolverine that wasn’t”, Michigan Today, June 16, 2011.
On Oct. 22, 1927, Michigan Stadium (The Big House) in Ann Arbor was dedicated as Michigan defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes 21-0 before a capacity crowd of 84,401.
General admission tickets sold for three dollars. The 11,114 student-ticket purchasers had to pay a 50-cent surcharge on the normal $2.50 price for this and the other “big games” of the year. The box seats in the lower rows went for four and five dollars. More than 17,000 tickets were sold at Ohio State.
Nearly 1,000 Boy Scouts, from all over Michigan, plus a few from Toledo, Cleveland and Columbus, were on hand to usher the ticket holders to their seats. A crowd of nearly 85,000 was on hand as the dedication ceremonies got under way at 2 p.m.
As a football spectacle, of course, the day wholly surpassed anything in Michigan history. As the Michigan Alumnus writer noted, “Ann Arbor flung open its gates to a horde of visitors nearly triple the size of its own population – and the new stadium swallowed them by two o-clock in the afternoon.”
The dedication ceremony itself was simple. Michigan Governor Fred W. Green and his Ohio counterpart Vince Donahey, and Presidents C.C. Little of Michigan and George W. Rightmire of Ohio, led the massed bands of the two universities onto the field from the east tunnel. The bands paraded to the flag pole where the national ensign was raised and the vast throng stood bareheaded during the playing of the “Star Spangled Banner” and “The Yellow and Blue.” The Detroit Free Press carried a particularly colorful account of the ceremonies.
With the formalities completed, the Stadium was turned over to the use for which it was built.
Source: Mgoblue.com
The state’s first official historic marker was dedicated on the campus of Michigan State University on this day. It commemorated the founding of the first state supported agricultural college in the country.
Michigan State University
Founded 1855
On this site stood College Hall, the first building in the United States erected for the teaching of scientific agriculture. Here began the first college of its kind in America, and the model for Land-Grant colleges established under the Morrill Act of 1862. This act granted lands for the endowment of colleges to provide for “liberal and practical pursuits and professions in life.”
Sources :
Michigan Historical Calendar courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.
Back in the day before data sheets and computers, runners were registered by friends and family members of Neal Shine, a Detroit Free Press reporter, who organized the first Detroit Free Press Marathon. A 27-year old college instructor from Bowling Green Ohio, Robert McOmber was the first male to cross the finish line, and Erma Tranter, a former Detroiter, was the women’s winner. 3000 runners participated.
Source : Kayla Daugherty, “How non-running newspaper guy launched the Detroit Free Press marathon“, Detroit Free Press, September 29, 2017.
More Detroit Free Press/Chemical Bank Marathon information.
It’s been more than a century since the original Lansing Brewing Company closed in 1914 due to local prohibition.
One of the first breweries in Michigan’s Capitol city, the Lansing Brewing Company supplied craft beer to artisans, laborers and tradesmen as they built our city over a century ago. Opened a year after Ransom E. Olds’ historic automobile ride down a city street in 1897, the Lansing Brewing Company welcomed its first customers.
The brewery’s impressive architecture graced the early Lansing skyline. The full-production brewery was located near the heart of the city so the beer could be delivered fresh and quickly to local watering holes.
The brewery quickly made a name for itself with its Amber Cream Ale, the local beer of choice for everyone from laborers to statesmen. The beer’s popularity continued until the pressure of the local dry crusaders, temperance movement and generally un-fun people proved too much to overcome. Eventually, the momentum toward Prohibition lead to the closing of Lansing Brewing Company in 1914.
The recipe for Amber Crème Ale was lost for more than 100 years, and it’s a rare style in the Midwest. When head brewer Sawyer Stevens attempted to resurrect the dead recipe, he had to play around with it.
“It was really cool to recreate,” Stevens said. “It’s got a subtle caramel malt to it. It’s a beer that goes down easy.”
All told, Stevens and the brewing staff made 12 beers for the opening, filling 580 kegs.
The new reincarnation is located at 518 E. Shiawassee St.
For the full article, see Alexander Alusheff, “Lansing Brewing Company opens to beer-thirsty crowd”, Lansing State Journal, October 23, 2015.
Imagine it this way: It’s like a jet ski powered by Rolls-Royce engines that’s longer than a football field, with room for a helicopter and 98 friends. It’s also not something to mess with.
The new USS Detroit, classified as a littoral combat ship (LCS), cost approximately $440 million.
The USS Detroit is part of a new controversial breed of naval vessel, which operates with speed, agility and is designed to work in shallow waters. It is, according to one of its designers, “not like anything else out there.” It’s designed to be quickly modified, even at sea, to take on different missions.
“The fact (Detroit) has had six ships named after it — most names in the Navy are rarely given more than once or twice,” said historian Mark Evans, who works with the Naval History and Heritage Command.
For the full article, see Jim Lynch, “USS Detroit: A new breed of ship for U.S. Navy“, Detroit News, October 13, 2016
Thousands show for USS Detroit commissioning“,
USS Detroit (LCS 7) Joins Navy’s Fleet“, Navy Live Blog, October 22, 2016.
Bonus: A History of Ships That Bore the Name USS Detroit
Ships bearing the name “Detroit” on behalf of the United States Navy began patrolling the world’s waters over two centuries ago and have played a role in events that shaped history.
Sunset at Amherstburg Naval Yard during the War of 1812 painting by Peter Rindlisbacher. In the midst of supply shortages, the crew of the new flagship HMS Detroit is seen fitting a sail borrowed from the HMS Queen Charlotte anchored on the right. After their defeat on the Lake, the British abandoned this site, and located their new Upper Lakes naval base at Penetanguishene, on Lake Huron.
In the midst of the War of 1812, British and American forces traded control of Detroit following incursions into each others’ territory. Britain commissioned the construction of the HMS Detroit, launched in August 1813. Its relatively small design made the ship ideal for scouting and carrying dispatches. Within a month, the sloop of war was engaged with American vessels in the Battle of Lake Erie, where it was heavily damaged, captured by the Americans and renamed the USS Detroit. “She was 12-guns at the Battle of Lake Erie … not a large ship for the most part,” said Mark Evans, a historian with the Naval History and Heritage Command. “It was a fierce battle. (The Americans) shot her to pieces and captured her from the British. When the smoke cleared, however, what was left of the Detroit was barely seaworthy. American ships towed her out of Lake Erie’s open waters and into the safety of Put-in-Bay. The Detroit stayed there for the next 12 years until she was sold to a private interest.
The second USS Detroit also started out with a different name: The USS Canandaigua. Launched in the midst of the Civil War, she was designed to help the Union choke off Confederate ports in what was appropriately called the Anaconda Plan. With a shallow draft, the Canandaigua could reach places its larger, heavier brethren could not. “You had this combination of blockading Confederate ports from the sea and smaller ships sailing up rivers like the Mississippi and the Missouri … sneaking into various ports,” Evans said. “Ships like the Canandaigua could pursue blockade runners into the narrow estuaries while the larger ones sat offshore to tangle with the heavier ships.” The Canandaigua was renamed the USS Detroit in 1869 and served the states for another six years until decommissioning.
The third USS Detroit was a cruiser built at Baltimore’s Columbian Iron Works and launched late in 1891 and commissioned on July 20, 1893. Her earliest action came in Caribbean and Latin American waters. In countries with uprisings and conflict, the USS Detroit would often land troops, or bluejackets, in order to protect American interests and provide a show of force. During the Spanish-American War, the third USS Detroit was part of a squadron that shelled Fort San Cristobal and Castillo San Felipe del Morrow in May 1898. Despite its success, the USS Detroit was a troubled vessel that served only 14 years. She was decommissioned in 1910.
The fourth USS Detroit is ready for launching in Massachusetts on June 29, 1922 — four years too late for World War I, but well-timed to play a role in the follow-up. Like its predecessor, the ship spent its earliest years in Latin American waters as well as in the Atlantic. The fourth USS Detroit was classified as a light cruiser. It was 555 feet 6 inches long, steam powered and could accommodate 458. The fourth USS Detroit was moored at Pearl Harbor’s Ford Island on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Imperial Japanese Navy executed its infamous attack. The Detroit floated between the USS Utah and the USS Raleigh. A pair of torpedoes struck the Utah, sinking it. Aboard the Detroit, crew members reported a torpedo passed by its own stern — missing by just 30 yards. With many sailors ashore on leave, the USS Detroit’s remaining crew faced the task of getting their ship into the fight. Getting up to steam was huge to begin with with the reduced crew,” Evans said. “But she got up to steam and got underway with guns blazing. It was pretty dramatic.” USS Detroit gunners reported downing a pair of Japanese aircraft, but the reports were not officially confirmed. The Detroit’s after-action report showed the ship fired 10,000 .50-caliber rounds in the battle. With Japan about to take control of the Philippines, the USS Detroit received a load of gold bullion from the submarine USS Trout at Pearl Harbor and delivered it safely to the port of San Francisco. At the end of the war, the USS Detroit accompanied the USS Missouri and other ships to Tokyo Bay for the surrender of Japan, Sept. 2, 1945. It was decommissioned at Philadelphia on Jan. 11, 1946.
In the summer of 1969, the fifth iteration of the USS Detroit emerged from Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington — a fast combat support ship destined for a 35-year career. While not a direct combatant, the fifth USS Detroit served as a support ship in the Vietnam War. At a time when it appeared North Vietnamese would overrun South Vietnamese forces in 1972, more naval firepower was called the region. To help the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga reach the area quickly, the Detroit was dispatched to meet it for a resupply at sea. That allowed the Saratoga to reach Vietnam by taking the unusual route of passing south of the African continent. The fifth USS Detroit also played a combat support role during the early 1990s in the Persian Gulf during operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. After 9/11, she continually deployed in that region,” Evans said. “She served in the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean hunting traffickers — everything from al-Qaida to pirates.”
The sixth USS Detroit undergoing sea trials.
The latest USS Detroit is a new class of Navy vessel, the littoral combat ship (LCS). It is designed to operate in shallow waters — areas where larger members of the U.S. fleet cannot go. The vessel’s 13.5-foot draft makes close-to-shore operation possible, while her water jet propulsion allows for a level of speed and maneuverability no other surface combat ship has. She can do a complete turn within her own 389-foot length. A Freedom variant of the LCS class, USS Detroit was built at Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wisc. and was commissioned in Detroit on October 22nd, 2016.
The USS Detroit in the Detroit River with the Renaissance Center in the background. Detroit dignitaries participating in its dedication in Detroit include Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority chief John Jamian, County Executive Robert Ficano, Deputy Mayor Ike McKinnon and Barbara Levin, wife of U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin.
Tour the USS Detroit – A 360-degree experience
Source : Jim Lynch, “USS Detroit has long, storied history”, Detroit News, October 13, 2016; updated October 19, 2016.
Robert Allan, “USS Detroit arrives at dock in Detroit River“, Detroit Free Press, October 14, 2016.