VACATION AND TRAVEL
known bridges; the Ambassador Bridge connecting us to Canada, and the Mackinac Bridge connecting the upper and Lower Peninsula. Did you know the Mackinac Bridge is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world? The Mackinac Bridge spans 5 miles over the Straits of Mackinac, which is where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet. The Mighty Mac took 3 years to complete and was opened to traffic in 1957.
Now, the Ambassador Bridge connecting us to Canada was named by Joseph Bower, the person credited with making the bridge a reality, who thought the name "Detroit-Windsor International Bridge" as too long and lacked emotional appeal. Bower wanted to symbolize the visible expression of friendship of two peoples with like ideas, and ideals, so that
is where the name came from. Did you know that?
Michigan is also home to the first three tunnels in the world that connect two different countries: the St. Clair Tunnel, which connects Port Huron with Sarnia, Ontario, and the Michigan Central Railway Tunnel and Detroit Windsor Tunnel, both of which connect you to -- you guessed it, Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.
Here is another thing we can be proud of. 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. By 1906 they started the Kellogg’s company with 44 employees.
Have you ever wondered where we
came up with the names of our towns and cities? For instance the city of Novi was
named from its designation as Stagecoach Stop # 6 or No.VI. The “NO” in Novi means number, and the “VI” is the roman numeral for 6.
(Detroit is a French word meaning strait. For example, in French one would refer to the Bering Strait as Détroit de Béring. In the case of Detroit, Michigan the label Détroit applies to the waterway that drains the waters of Lake Huron into Lake Erie. Today we refer to that waterway as three distinct parts: the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River.)
The entire region of southeastern Michigan and southwestern Ontario had been referred to as Detroit since the 1600s, when French explorers first discovered the area. The full name was le Détroit du lac Érié).
There are so many other facts to share which can cover many more pages but hopefully I brought to light something you did not know about our history. There are many other examples I could talk about, but hopefully these few fun facts were interesting to hear.