Michigan Did You Know

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Michigan’s 175th Birthday

January 26th is Michigan’s 175th birthday! On January 26, 1837 President Andrew Jackson signed a bill declaring Michigan the 26th state of the union.
In honor of this special occasion, here are some facts about this great state from www.michigan.gov.

State Name: Michigan
Name Origin: Derived from the Indian word Michigama, meaning great or large lake.
Nickname: Wolverine State
Statehood: Jan. 26, 1837 (26th)
Capital: Lansing, since 1847; prior to that, Detroit.
State Motto: Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice, which translates, “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you.”
Flower: Apple Blossom
Bird: Robin
Tree: White Pine
Stone: Petoskey Stone
Gem: Chlorastrolite
Fish: Brook Trout
Soil: Kalkaska Soil Series
Reptile: Painted Turtle
Game Mammal: White-tailed Deer
Wildflower: Dwarf Lake Iris
Fossil: Mastodon

I knew we had a state flower, tree, reptile, etc. But, I did not know we had a state soil! You learn something new everyday!

To celebrate Michigan’s 175th birthday, look around you and enjoy the natural beauty that surrounds us all! Turn your porch lights on Thursday night so Michigan shines brightly for all to see!

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Has the Michigan Job Market Turned a Corner?

A lot of Michigan folks we’ve talked to recently say they feel like things are starting to get better.  Maybe it’s because they are.  According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Michigan is now creating more jobs than it’s losing.  Slate has provided a nifty little animated map to show how the job market has been morphing since 2007.  Red stands for job losses and blue, job gains.  The animation gets pretty scary looking as it passes through 2009, but when we get to present the picture is a lot more positive.

You really have to see the map in action to appreciate it, go to the page now and click, the green “Play” button.  Then, keep your eye on Michigan.

Slate map:

http://labs.slate.com/articles/slate-job-map-updated/

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

http://www.bls.gov/

 

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Hey Michigan! Did You Know…

Michigan was the first state to guarantee every child the right to tax-paid high school education.

Marquette’s U.P. 200 sled dog race is approximately 240 miles in length and a qualifying race for the Iditarod.

2009 U. S. News and World Report annual survey ranked MSU’s elementary and secondary education graduate programs as rge best in the nation for the 14th consecutive year.

The Petoskey Stone is fossilized coral that existed in the northern Lower Peninsula about 350 million years ago.

Rogers City has the world’s largest limestone quarry.

Michigan Did you know

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Top Ten Tuesday – Favorite Michigan Born Athletes

Based on the input from our readers, here are the Top Ten Favorite Michigan Born Athletes:

10. Mike  Modano (Westland)

9. Serena Williams (Saginaw)

8. Jaosn Richardson (Saginaw)

7. Alexi Lalas (Birmingham)

6. Andre Rison (Flint)

5. John Smoltz (Lansing)

4. Chris Webber (Detroit)

3. Jerome Bettis (Detroit)

2. Magic Johnson (Lansing)

1. Kirk Gibson (Pontiac)

P.S. Derek Jeter was raised in Kalamazoo, but born in New Jersey (according to our sources).

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It’s All In The Name

Ever wonder how some Michigan cities got their names?  We hope to shed some light on that mystery…

Colon, MI

Colon was named when the founder was flipping through the dictionary, came upon the word “colon”, and decided that the rivers and lake sytem around the area looked like that particular body organ.

Fenton, MI

The town founders were playing a game of poker and decided the winner would get naming rights of the town.  William Fenton won, but the city could has easily been LeRoy or Rockwell.

Ishpeming, MI

Originally called Lake Superior Location, the name was later changed to Ishpeming, which is te Chippewa word for “heaven” or “high place”.

Shiawassee, MI

There is actually no translation that exists for this county name.  It was believed that it was named for the river that twists through the county and may in fact mean “twisting river”.

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Michiganders Have Super Vision!

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

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Hey Michigan! Did You Know…

Sault Ste. Marie was founded by Father Jacques Marquette in 1668. It is the third oldest remaining settlement in the United States.

Michigan has more than 11,000 inland lakes and more than 36,000 miles of streams.

Standing anywhere in Michigan a person is within 85 miles of one of the Great Lakes.

In 1879, Detroit telephone customers were the first in the nation to be assigned telephone numbers to facilitate handling calls.

The Kellogg Company has made Battle Creek the Cereal Capital of the world. The Kellogg brothers accidentally discovered the process for producing flaked cereal products and sparked the beginning of the dry cereal industry.
Michigan Did you know

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Michigan’s Cheesy Potato City

When a Michigander hears the name Pinconning, chances are that the first thing they think of is cheese. But, did you know that Pinconning is an Indian name, which means “a place of potatoes?” It was named for the potatoes that grew by the river.

The first European settler in the area was GeorgeVan Etten, who put up a sawmill. Later, the Detroit and Mackinac Railroad built a line through Pinconning which “put the town on the map.”

Today, The City is most famous for the production of Pinconning Cheese, which began approximately 100 years ago. This is an old style recipe which has a taste somewhere between a colby and a cheddar. The process has been refined since its origin, and the cheese factory now produces a variety of styles, from fresh to aged.

For more information about Pinconning, please visit: www.infomi.com/city/pinconning/

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Hey Michigan! Do you know how Hell got its name?

There are two theories on how Hell, MI was named. Read on and choose which one suits you best.

Theory One goes like this: A pair of German travelers slid out of a curtained stagecoach one sunny summer afternoon, and one said to the other, “So schoene hell.” ‘Hell,’ in the German language, means bright and beautiful. Those who overheard the visitors’ comments had a bit of a laugh and shared the story with the other locals.

Sometime later, George Reeves, who, more than anyone else, was responsible for the origin of Hell, was asked just what he thought the town should be named. George reportedly replied, “I don’t care, you can name it Hell if you want to.” As the story goes, the name stuck and stuck fast. After some attempts to soften the effect of the name by suggesting they change it to Reevesville or Reeve’s Mills, he gave up on the whole thing and simply lived with it.

Theory Two goes like this: The area in which Hell exists is pretty low and swampy. And because it was a part of the Dexter Trail, which traced along the higher ground between Lansing and Dexter, Michigan, a formerly busy farm market and early railhead, traveling through the Hell area would have been wetter, darker, more convoluted, and certainly denser with mosquitoes than other legs of the journey. Further, river traders of old would have had to portage between the Huron and the Grand River systems somewhere around the present location of Hell. You can picture them pulling their canoes, heavy with provisions and beaver pelts, through the underbrush, muttering and swatting bugs as they fought to get to the banks of the next river.

For more information about Hell or to plan a visit, check out www.hell2u.com.

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