Main Street, Midland, Michigan

Midland, Michigan, seems like a prosperous town. That would probably be the impact of Dow Chemicals and related businesses — note that the city seal makes no bones about better living through chemistry — but in any case prosperity makes for a pleasant main street.

Main Street runs more-or-less parallel to the Tittabawasee River more than a block away. We arrived around lunchtime on September 1.

Main Street Midland MichiganMain Street Midland MichiganMain Street Midland MichiganWe had lunch outdoors at a Mexican restaurant on Main Street. The food was good and a few of the other patrons were dressed for some occasion or other.
Main Street Midland MichiganI didn’t ask. We noticed during our Main Street stroll various golf-ball-based artworks.
Main Street Midland Michigan golf ball artMain Street Midland Michigan golf ball artMain Street Midland Michigan golf ball artThose are part of the Downtown Midland Summer Sculpture Series. As usual for such displays, the works will be around in the summer, then auctioned for charity come fall. Chicago’s Cows on Parade in 1999 kicked that sort of thing off in the U.S., with the idea borrowed from Europe.

According to Downtown Midland, the golf ball theme is because the inaugural Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational was held this summer in Midland by the LPGA.

A few more. This one’s mildly unsettling.
Main Street Midland Michigan golf ball artCandy, eh?
Main Street Midland Michigan golf ball artThis counts as golf-ball based?
Main Street Midland Michigan golf ball artLooks to me like a cold-environment creature that floats in the upper atmosphere of Neptune. That’s something I would think of, anyway.

A few blocks to the northwest of the golf balls, but still on Main Street, is the Midland County Courthouse, unlike any other I’ve seen.
Midland County Courthouse, MichiganNot just a Tudor-style courthouse, a colorful one dating from the 1920s.
Midland County Courthouse, MichiganMidland County Courthouse, MichiganBloodgood Tuttle of Cleveland, who did work in Shaker Heights, is credited with designing the building, and apparently there are murals inside.

I’ve been conditioned by illustrations and movies, of course, but I couldn’t shake the idea that if Faerieland needed a court to dispense Faerie justice, it would look like this.