Shipwreck discoveries disclosed in Northern Michigan

Shipwreck discoverer, Thaddius Bedford, chose to disclose the findings of the shipwrecks years after the initial discovery in order to be sure he was credited with the finds. One shipwreck is in the Grand Traverse Bay, but has not been identified as of yet. The other two were found in the Manitou Preserve. The Redfern was discovered in 2002 west of Betsie Point and an 85-foot steamer was found east of South Manitou Island. Read the full article at The Detroit Free Press.

Archives of Michigan Digital Collection

So I was on flickr last night (yes, again) looking at historic Michigan photos and came across this brief collection of photos from the Archives of Michigan. I followed the link to the Archives of Michigan and was surprised to see that they have a digital collection. Currently, they have a 586 photo collection of Michigan Lighthouses featured. As you can tell by our logo for Gift Baskets From Michigan I am just a wee bit interested in Michigan's historic lighthouses. In fact, I'm working on a little side project related to that thought - more to come on that at a future time.

Other items of note in this digital archive collection:

• Michigan Sheet Music
• Idlewild Photograph Collection
• A Handful of Oral Histories
• Photos of Civil War Soldiers
• Photos of Michigan Governors

Visit the Digital Archives of Michigan

That's it for today. Have a great weekend! :)

National Register of Historic Places adds seven Michigan locations

I love history and since I am a lifelong Michigan resident I am always interested in Michigan history as well. Seven properties were added to the National Register of Historic Places in July. A nice segment of Michigan is represented with properties from the U.P. (Iron River) on down to Detroit.

• Central School, Iron River
• East Jordan Lumber, East Jordan
• The Votruba Block, East Jordan
• Marquette & Western Railroad Negaunee Freight Depot, Negaunee
• The Majestic Theater, Detroit
• Garden Bowl, Detroit
• Helen Newberry Nurses Home, Detroit

You can read more about these locations at Michigan.gov.

For a complete listing of Michigan locations in the National Register of Historic Places you can search their database.

(Another) New deadline for preservation of Tiger Stadium

While Tiger Stadium continues to fall, the possibility of preserving a portion of the stadium remains. November 1st is the new deadline for the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy to come up with a financial plan in order to proceed with fundraising for the March 1st deadline. The March 1st deadline will determine whether or not a portion of the stadium and the ball diamond can be saved. There is now a Plan B for preserving the ball field and erecting a building to showcase Ernie Harwell's massive baseball memorabilia collection. The initial plan was to save about 3,000 seats between the dugouts and the field. Plan B is about $10 million cheaper than the initial plan which should help the Conservancy preserve at least the field.

On a side note - my Tiger Stadium page at Squidoo is currently ranked #170 out of hundreds of thousands of other pages. If you have a moment, take a look at it. It's a history of Tiger Stadium with pictures from before there was even a ball field at The Corner.

There are videos of the last ballgame at Tiger Stadium, the demolition of Tiger Stadium, and great facts and stories of this historic ballpark.

Ugh! The real demolition has begun at Tiger Stadium

Wow. The photos of the gutting of Tiger Stadium are helping to make the finality of the end of the road for the old ballpark sink in. You can read updates on the demolition and see a couple of pictures of the gash carved out of the portion of the stadium between the centerfield bleachers and left-field at the Detroit Free Press.

Demolition work has begun on Tiger Stadium

Tiger Stadium has suffered it's first wounds in the demolition phase of it's existence. A gaping hole was torn in the cement block wall behind the bleacher seats. For pictures see this article at the Detroit News. Demolition is currently only taking place between Trumbull and Cochrane while awaiting the August 1 deadline for the Tiger Stadium Conservancy or any other group to raise the funds necessary to save a portion of the stadium between the dugouts.

Get your Detroit Tigers tickets to a game at Comerica Park and make a final pilgrimage to Tiger Stadium before the game and before she is gone except for photographs and treasured memories.

Learn more about the history of Tiger Stadium

Watch this video and remember how Tiger Stadium looked back when the Tigers were still playing there -