Main Street, Frankenmuth, Michigan

Posted on September 11, 2019 by admin

One thing I didn’t expect while we strolled along Main Street in Frankenmuth, Michigan, on Labor Day — yet another walkable main street — was a life-sized bronze of a fudge maker. Yet there he is.
According to the plaque, it’s Gary F. McClellan (1940-2015), “entrepreneur, leader, friend, husband and father.” He must have had something to do with Zak & Mac’s Chocolate Haus, which is behind the statue. That’s one of a string of small stores along the street whose customers are the tourists who come to Frankenmuth, a farm town settled by Bavarians in the 19th century that eventually added a tourist component.
A successful component, I’d say. Lots of people had come to town on Labor Day.
I’d read a little about the settlement of the area by Bavarians, interestingly before 1848, as an Indian mission that never really panned out because most of the Indians were already gone by then. Even so, the doughty colonists stayed. Their descendants are probably pretty thick on the ground in this part of the state.

Modern visitors come to wander through the shops, many with that Bavarian look. That’s what we did.

Also they come to eat.
So did we. In fact we had Zehnder’s chicken, though we took a to-go family pack to a picnic table behind the restaurant: fried chicken, beans, macaroni, potato salad, rolls. Aside from a few interrupting bees, we enjoyed it.

Frankenmuth also sports such sights as a maypole fountain, a popular place for posing.
Later I read a little about Bavarian maypoles. The idea is similar to English maypoles, but not quite the same. Maybe that’s the real source of dispute between the UK and the EU — the regulation of maypoles. Just a thought.

In the various sources that I’ve consulted — skimmed — the early history of Frankenmuth gets some attention, such as in this short history of the place. But modern Frankenmuth, that is, its invention as a tourist town after World War II, gets short shrift. To my way of thinking, that’s as interesting as its history as a German colony in Michigan.

There are some hints here, however, in the Frankenmuth media kit, of all places. From the “significant dates,” you learn that Zehnder’s Restaurant, which is a sprawling place with a lot of dining rooms, got its start as the Exchange Hotel in 1856. Another 19th-century hotel, Fischer House, later became the Bavarian Inn, also with a large restaurant.

When did Frankenmuth start playing up its Bavarian-ness? Looks like the 1950s.
From the timeline: 1957: Rupprecht’s Sausage was the first building decorated in the “Bavarian” architecture. 1958/59: Zehnder family… redecorates the Fischer Hotel in Bavarian architectural style. 1960 & Current: More buildings adopt “Bavarian” architecture.

A Bavarian Festival started in 1963 but the town didn’t around to an Oktoberfest until 1990. In 2001, a Bavarian-themed mall opened south of the Cass River along Main Street.

Sounds like a few places — the chicken restaurants — were long-time draws. After all, metro Detroit and the once-prosperous Flint aren’t that far. But in the postwar age of auto tourism, the town’s merchants happened on a winning formula of more than just chicken, one that dovetailed with the town’s origin: faux Bavaria.

That might sound like criticism of Frankenmuth as “inauthentic,” a vague epithet if there ever was one, but I refuse to go down that road.

Of course the place isn’t really Bavarian. No one thinks that. Visitors respond to it as a pleasant place to be. People were out and about on a summer day, having an innocuous good time, and supporting businesses that exist here and nowhere else. You could call it an homage to Bavaria, but in any case it’s an authentic American town with a popular theme.

Main Street, Midland, Michigan

Posted on September 10, 2019 by admin

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.

We 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.
I didn’t ask. We noticed during our Main Street stroll various golf-ball-based artworks.
Those 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.
Candy, eh?
This counts as golf-ball based?
Looks 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.
Not just a Tudor-style courthouse, a colorful one dating from the 1920s.
Bloodgood 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.

Lansing Walkabout

Posted on September 9, 2019 by admin

On the last day of August, we arrived in Lansing, Michigan, for a look. I’d only passed through once, Labor Day 2000 as it happened, to find the state capitol closed, as you’d expect. This time I hoped it would be open on Saturday, as it usually is. It wasn’t.

Still, it’s a handsome structure with a lanky cast-iron dome.
“In January 1872, a plan (called ‘Tuebor,’ meaning, ‘I will defend’) submitted by architect Elijah E. Myers of Springfield, Illinois, was selected,” says the capitol’s web site regarding its development, which proceeded throughout that decade. “Myers moved to Michigan to supervise construction and lived for the rest of his life in his adopted state.

“Materials for the building came from all over the country and even from abroad. Although the millions of bricks that make up its walls and ceilings were locally made in Lansing, the stone facade came from Ohio, the cast iron for the dome and floor beams from Pennsylvania, and the marble and limestone floors from Vermont.”

The interior is supposed to be ornate, but that will have to wait. Instead, we were able to look at the scattering of memorials on the grounds, including this unusual one to the First Michigan Sharpshooters Volunteer Regiment.

Another memorial you don’t see that often — but not never — is to the men who fought in the war with Spain, but also in the Philippine Insurrection and the China Relief Expedition.
A block east of the capitol grounds is Washington Square. At least, that’s what the map calls it. It’s a section of Washington Ave. lined with various businesses, and good for a walk on a late summer afternoon.
Formerly a theater. The Strand, opened in 1921 as one of the largest vaudeville stages in Michigan, designed by Chicago architect John Eberson.
He did a lot of theaters, many of which don’t exist any more. The auditorium of the Strand disappeared to make way for office and retail space in the mid-80s.

The Hollister Building, the last remaining of Lansing’s major commercial buildings developed in the early 20th century (and renovated in the early 21st century).
Boji Tower, around the corner toward the capitol on Allegan St. and the tallest building in Lansing.
An impressive pile of art deco bricks that got in just under the wire: construction started in 1929. The Boji family is a recent owner; earlier names are the Olds Tower (as in auto pioneer Ranson Olds), the Capital National Bank Tower and the Michigan National Bank Tower. The fairly obscure Hopkins and Dentz of New York designed it.

East of the capitol a few blocks is public art so new that it doesn’t appear on the StreetView image from the summer of 2017.
“Portrait of a Dreamer” by Ivan Iler, installed in December 2017. Naturally, Roadside America has the story: “The giant mechanical head is 15 feet high and is built out of almost two tons of aluminum and stainless steel.

“Visitors are encouraged to turn a crank at its base to move the gears, which spill out of the head toward Lansing’s cultural district. The purpose of the sculpture is to turn visitors’ heads while they turn the crank, so that they notice the science center and museums that they otherwise might miss along Michigan Ave.”

Bay City State Park

Posted on September 8, 2019 by admin

It’s near Bay City, Michigan, but even so Bay City State Park strikes me as a misnomer. It isn’t that near, for one thing — you have drive some miles to reach the edge of the city. Saginaw Bay State Park would be better, because that’s the salient feature of the park.

Though it’s a bit of a walk to take in the view. That’s what we did last Sunday morning.
Worth it.
“Bay City State Park, situated on the shores of the Saginaw Bay, is home to one of the largest remaining freshwater, coastal wetlands on the Great Lakes, the Tobico Marsh,” the Michigan DNR says. “More than a thousand feet of sandy beach and over 2,000 acres of wetland woods, wet meadows, cattail marshlands and oak savannah prairies make it an ideal staging area for migratory birds.”

We spent time on the beach, but also walked around the nearby lagoon, which took the better part of an hour.
The air was neither hot nor cold, no mosquitoes bothered us — hard to believe, considering some of our mosquito experiences in Michigan — and the place wasn’t crowded at all, even though it was Labor Day weekend. The dog was happy to sniff along but didn’t pull too hard. Occasionally we’d hear a motor in the distance, but the hum of traffic you hear from every direction in the suburbs wasn’t there. Birds, bugs and wind are most of what you hear in a place like that, if you leave your noisemaking gizmos behind.

Even better than all that, we’d come some distance to be there. That seasoned the experience for the better. All in all, a near perfect walk.

Divers Michigan Gardens

Posted on September 5, 2019 by admin

Michigan State University, which we visited on Saturday, is almost as big as they come in academia, in enrollment and acreage. Tucked away on campus is the W.J. Beal Botanical Garden — and I mean that almost literally, since the garden occupies a five-acre, near-circular depression in the earth. You need to go down an outdoor staircase to reach it.

The garden is meticulously organized. I’ve never seen a botanical garden so thoroughly arrayed by categories important to botanists (and the rest of us, if you care about the difference between, say, edible plants and poisonous ones).

Long curving and straight beds separated by a fair amount of grass form the basis of the garden.

Each bed belongs to a category of plant. According to a sign posted in the garden, categories include perfume plants, fiber plants, dye plants, fixed oil plants, honey plants, flavoring plants, injurious plants, indigenous American plants, weeds, vegetables, grains and medicinal plants. There are also geographic categories: Southeast U.S. forest, European forest, northern Michigan, southern Michigan, and so on.

“This garden,” the sign says, “functions as an outdoor laboratory, a repository of plant genetics, a resource for research and teaching, and a place for the community to appreciate the beauty and biology of plants. There are over 2,500 plants in the labeled beds alone… established in 1873, this is one of the oldest continually operated gardens of its kind in the United States.”

The place wows with variety. I have to like a garden that includes weeds on purpose. Such as the weedy-looking Cardoon.
Among the medicinal plants, there’s belladonna, though I would have thought it went in the injurious category.
Injurious plants, according to the garden, include mechanically injurious (guess that would be by thorns and such), milk-tainting, those that inspire hay fever and contact dermatitis, cyanogenic and poisonous seed, among others.

One handsome plant I’d never heard of before — there are a lot of those in the world — was the Princess Tree (Paulownia tomentosa).
On Sunday, we visited two gardens, both in Midland. One was the compact but a-bloom Dahlia Hill, which sports about 3,000 dahlia plants arranged on eight stone terraces. According to the garden, there are over 300 varieties of dahlias there, with an example of each variety planted and labeled along gravel pathways.

A local artist and dahlia enthusiast, Charles Breed (d. 2018), founded the garden in 1992 and oversaw its terracing some years later to control erosion.

Dahlias are another example of I-had-no-idea-that. As in, that there are so many varieties. Who knew? Not me.
No Black Dahlias that I could see. Some wag of a horticulturist might have bred such.

We visited the big Dow Gardens separately, Yuriko and Ann first, then me, since ordinary dogs aren’t allowed in.
I spent about two hours there under overcast skies that always threatened rain but seldom even drizzled. That must have kept the crowds away. For minutes at a time, I was by myself on the large lawns and among the countless trees, passing by lush bushes and flower beds.

Water features figure prominently in the garden’s design.
All together there are 1,700 varieties of plant in the garden suitable for cultivation in central Michigan. Now at 110 acres, the garden started out as a private eight-acre garden of chemical mogul Herbert Dow, founder of Dow Chemical. Later generations of Dows enlarged the place and set up the foundation that runs it now.

Dow has a fine rose garden, too.
What do you do in a rose garden, whether you’ve been promised one or not? Stop and smell the roses, of course.

My own skills at gardening are meager, but I like a stroll through a well-executed garden. That’s no different than a lot of things. I can’t sing worth a damn, but I sure like listening to a good singer.

Divers Michigan Bridges

Posted on September 4, 2019 by admin

Since the air was still warm and we had a dog with us, much of the recent Michigan trip involved outdoor destinations. The first of these was a modest yet remarkable park outside Battle Creek, the Historic Bridge Park in Calhoun County. The park is on the North Branch of the Kalamazoo River, near where it passes under I-94. I’ve driven by many times without a clue that it was there.

The riverside part of the park is pretty.
But it was the historic bridges, assembled here from other parts of Michigan, that we came to see. A superb collection of Machine Age structures, but that didn’t dawn on me until I’d walked over some of them. Such as the 133rd Avenue Bridge, originally located in Allegan County and built in 1887.
A bridge originally on the Charlotte Highway in Ionia County, built in 1886.
The 20 Mile Road Bridge, originally in Calhoun County, dating from 1906.
The Gale Road Bridge from Ingham County, built in 1897.
“The park allows metal truss bridges that have become insufficient for their original location to be preserved for their historic and aesthetic value…” says HistoricBridges.org. “Historic Bridge Park is the first of its kind in the entire United States.”

“The restoration of the metal truss bridges in the park was directed by Vern Mesler with the support of Dennis Randolph, former Managing Director of what was then called the Calhoun County Road Commission.

“They carried out the restoration with an unprecedented attention paid to maintaining as much of the the original bridge material as possible, and exactly replicating any parts that required replacement. For example, during restoration, failed rivets on the bridges were replaced with rivets, not modern high strength bolts. The bridges in Historic Bridge Park represent some of the best metal truss bridge restoration work to be found in the country.”

The park also features a sizable iron sculpture.
A nearby plaque says “Historic Bridge Park Sculpture Project, 2002.” Sculptor, Vernon J. Mesler, who must be the Vern mentioned above, and the fellow who did this specialized article.

A cool bit of work.
In Midland, Michigan, about a block from Main Street, is the Tridge.
It’s a three-way bridge where the Chippewa River flows into the Tittabawassee River, first opened in 1981 and renovated a few years ago, which might be why it looked fairly new. The brainchild of the nonprofit Midland Area Community Foundation — note the tri-bridge-like drawing over its name — the local Gerace Construction erected the structure, information about which is at its web site.

This kind of Y bridge isn’t that common, though there are some here and there in the world, including two others in Michigan, in Brighton and Ypsilanti. Maybe Michigan has an affinity for odd vectors. This is the state of the Michigan left, after all.

At the Dow Gardens in Midland, a pedestrian bridge over St. Andrews Rd. connects the gardens proper with the Whiting Forest, a later addition to the garden.

One of the attractions of the Whiting Forest is its canopy walk. At 1,400 feet long, Dow Gardens assets that it’s the nation’s longest canopy walk. While technically not a bridge — or at least it’s a bridge to nowhere — the walkway does get as high as 40 feet above the ground. There are no stairs to climb. The walkway starts at ground level and rises gradually as it meanders through the forest.

The view from the end of one of the three arms of the canopy walk.
Some views from below.
The skies at that moment were overcast and there had been a little rain earlier, but nothing violent. Bet the canopy’s a thrilling spot to find yourself during an intense thunderstorm. I’m sure people would do it, if Dow Gardens would let them go there, which I’m sure it doesn’t.

To Lake Huron and Back

Posted on September 3, 2019 by admin

On Saturday we left town remarkably early (for us) and drove across the Lower Peninsula of Michigan so that on Sunday morning, I could stick my feet in Lake Huron.Saginaw Bay in particular. Of course that wasn’t the entirety of the trip. But it was the inspiration. Sometime years ago, I realized that I’d never really gotten a look at Lake Huron. I’ve crossed the Mackinac Bridge a number of times, which offers a view of the lake to the east, but somehow that doesn’t count. I wanted to see Lake Huron from outside a car, moving at zero miles an hour, and hear the waves and smell the water and feel the sand and pebbles.

So Labor Day weekend was the time. We all went, including the dog. First stop on Saturday morning was at one of the Sweetwater’s Donut Mills in Kalamazoo because I hadn’t forgotten them.
Near Battle Creek, we stopped at a novel local spot: Historic Bridge Park. I’ve seen open-air museums devoted to houses and other buildings, but this is the only place I know that functions as an open-air museum featuring bridges.

Heading northeast, we arrived in Lansing in time to visit the Michigan State Capitol. Or so I thought. There are usually Saturday hours, but not on Labor Day weekend. Still, we had a good walk around the grounds and Washington Square to the east, along with an al fresco lunch of Cuban sandwiches.

Michigan State University is in East Lansing. After some wandering around the sprawling campus, we found the W.J. Beal Botanical Garden, the first of three gardens we visited.

We made it to Midland, Michigan, before dark and spent the next two nights there. On Sunday morning, we visited Bay City State Park on the lakeshore, walking on the beach and a path around a large lagoon. By lunchtime, we were back in Midland, eating al fresco again — the thing to do with a dog in tow.

Midland has a lot of large parks accessible from its small downtown, but that’s not the distinctive feature. That would be the Tridge, a three-way bridge across the confluence of the Chippewa and Tittabawassee rivers. Naturally we had to cross that.

Next we visited Midland’s Dahlia Hill, which is planted with thousands of dahlias and open to wander around. After that, Yuriko and Ann visited the much larger Dow Gardens, while I took a drive with the dog to Bay City. No dogs allowed at Dow Gardens.

During my driving look-see in Bay City, I noticed a Huron Circle Tour sign. Like Superior, that would be a drive.
Lake Huron Circle Tour sign Want. To. Do. It. But not now. While everyone else rested in the room early in the evening, I visited the expansive and exhausting Dow Gardens, along with the adjacent Whiting Forest. Open till 8:30 in the evening until Labor Day, fortunately.

On Labor Day we drove home, but not the most direct way. We passed through parts of Saginaw — parts beaten down by the contraction of U.S. manufacturing, it looked like — and then on to Michigan’s faux Bavarian tourist town, Frankenmuth.

Had a good time and a chicken lunch there, but the overstimulation of it all made the dog as nervous as I’ve ever seen her, so we headed home. Riding in the back seat seems to be as calming for her as parking herself on the couch at home.

As far as I can tell, she enjoyed the trip and the many new smells.

That last one almost instantly became a favorite picture of her.

The Lost Lincoln Park Cemetery

Posted on August 28, 2019 by admin

Back again on September 3 after the long weekend. But not long enough. They never are.

That southern Lincoln Park used to be a cemetery in Chicago’s earliest days, before the apotheosis of the man from Springfield, wasn’t news to me. I’m pretty sure I read about it during my own early days in Chicago.

The last burial there was in 1866, and soon the graves were moved to “rural” cemeteries like Graceland. Except that bones still turn up from time to time in this part of the park. Wonder if that’s common knowledge among the recreational sports players in the park. Signs posted nearby explain these things, but who reads them?
City Cemetery Chicago-Lincoln Park now Actually, more than signs. Not far from the Chicago History Museum is the sole remaining mausoleum from the cemetery period, the Couch Tomb.

In “Hidden Truths: The Chicago City Cemetery and Lincoln Park,” artist Pamela Bannos notes the following about the Couch Tomb: “As a part of Hidden Truths, I have asserted that the Couch family tomb is the oldest structure left standing in the Chicago Fire zone. This stone vault has stood in place since it was built on-site in 1858.

“It was this conspicuous vestige from the City Cemetery that initiated this project. During informal polling of friends and acquaintances living in Chicago, I was surprised to learn that many who exited Lake Shore Drive, driving through Lincoln Park, had not noticed the family mausoleum.”

Ira Couch was an early Chicago millionaire who died in 1857. He’s likely in the tomb, along with family members, though that isn’t quite certain. A discussion of that question and much more are included in the Hidden Truths web site.

Most intriguing is why the tomb is still there. Bannos’ best guess, and I will go along with it, is that it was too expensive to move. Plant a few trees around it and before long, no one notices. That’s exactly what has happened.

A Few Lincoln Park Statues (And Where’s Garibaldi?)

Posted on August 27, 2019 by admin

The southern part of Lincoln Park in Chicago features statues of famous men fairly close together, but not quite within sight of each other. Visible from W. North Blvd., barely — at the other end of a linear garden — is Lincoln.
This isn’t just any Lincoln statue, of which there are many. This is Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Standing Lincoln, whose formal title is “Abraham Lincoln: The Man,” completed in 1887. Among Lincoln statues, it has few peers.
I understand there are full-sized replicas in both Mexico City and London, where he keeps statuary company with nearby works depicting Winston Churchill, Robert Peel, Benjamin Disraeli, Mahatma Gandhi and others.

Stanford White designed the memorial’s semicircular exedra, where I parked myself for a few minutes.
On the exedra’s left is this curious globe.
The text is Lincoln’s letter to Horace Greely of August 22, 1862. Interesting choice, rather than the Gettysburg Address or part of the Second Inaugural Address, which are carved into the Lincoln Memorial. Perhaps in 1887 the letter was considered the essence of the man.

On the north side of a pedestrian tunnel under W. LaSalle Dr. is a statue of Benjamin Franklin.
The Chicago Park District says: “Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune, wrote, ‘I have deemed it a personal duty to keep [Franklin’s] memory fresh in the minds of Chicago’s youth.’ Along with the Old-Time Printers’ Association, Medill hired sculptor Richard Henry Park (1832–1902) to create the Benjamin Franklin Monument. Park came to Chicago from New York to participate in the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

“The monument was originally located on the east side of the Lincoln Park Zoo near the South Lagoon. In 1966, the Chicago Park District moved the bronze sculpture and its white granite base to accommodate an expansion of the zoo.”

Further north, and visible from the South Pond, is the Ulysses S. Grant Monument.
That’s the view from west. I wanted to get a closer look at it, since I never had. All the years I’ve been here, you’d think I would have, but no. The view from the east:
From just under the statue.

Looks like Grant, all right. The park district again: “William Le Baron Jenney, the noteworthy designer of early skyscrapers, recommended that the memorial should include a monumental Romanesque arched structure. More than a dozen artists competed for the project.

“The winning proposal came from Louis T. Rebisso (1837–1899), a Cincinnati-based artist who had emigrated from Italy to America in 1857. Rebisso produced an eighteen-foot-tall equestrian bronze statue of Grant above an elegant version of the arched structure that Jenney had suggested.

“When the sculpture was dedicated in 1891, more than 200,000 people attended the ceremonies.”

Also in this part of Lincoln Park is an empty plinth rising in a bleak little patch of land.
A recent statue removal I hadn’t heard about, like in New Orleans? That didn’t seem likely, especially when I noticed GARIBALDI carved in the plinth. Turns out that Garibaldi was removed — so he could be displayed in a park closer to a Chicago Italian neighborhood at the time. That was in 1982.

You’d think that the park district could get around to putting another statue there after nearly 40 years, but apparently not.

I passed by one more statue in the park on Sunday, back south of LaSalle, and not of a famous man: “Fountain Girl.”
This work has a curious history. I was so curious I sat on a park bench near the statue and looked it up on my gizmo. It is a copy of an earlier work.

The park district: “The piece was sculpted by English artist George Wade in 1893 as a commissioned piece by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The WCTU raised $3,000 for the original public fountain to provide ‘pure drinking water’ as an alternative to liquor.”

The fountain stood at the world’s fair and later in downtown Chicago. Copies of it were installed in other cities. Eventually, the original was located in Lincoln Park, only to be stolen in the 1950s.

“In 2007, the Chicago Park District, the State of Illinois, the Lincoln Park Conservancy and private donors raised funds towards the project. The bronze figure was recast from the Portland, Maine fountain, and it is now installed on its original base.”

Originally, the fountain provided non-alcoholic refreshment for people, dogs and horses, but the park district is quick to point out that the modern version provides non-potable water.

South Pond, Lincoln Park

Posted on August 26, 2019 by admin

Frame your photos just so and you can achieve the appearance of wilderness.

Not only did I not visit the wilderness yesterday, I was smack in a densely populated city. Chicago, of course. Late in the morning I took a walk through the southern reaches of Lincoln Park — south of the better-trod zoo and conservatory and other parts of the park. Go far enough along this path and you reach the park’s South Pond.
In August, it’s lush with vegetation, but also clearly urban.

I don’t remember walking this particular path before. No matter how many times you go somewhere, there’s always more.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Been There