Mention
MICHIGAN and most people think of
cars, heavy industry and inner-city
Detroit. Midwesterners prefer to focus
on its magnificent scenery: the
beaches, dunes and cliffs along the
3200-mile shoreline of its two vividly
contrasting peninsulas –
bordering four of the five Great Lakes
– rival many an oceanfront state.
The mitten-shaped Lower
Peninsula is dominated from its
southeastern corner by the industrial
giant of Detroit, surrounded by
satellite cities almost exclusively
devoted to the automotive industry. In
the west, the scenic 350-mile Lake
Michigan shore drive passes through
likeable little ports before reaching
the stunning Sleeping Bear Dunes
and resort towns such as Traverse
City in the peninsula’s balmy
northwest corner. The desolate,
dramatic and thinly populated Upper
Peninsula, reaching out from
Wisconsin like a claw to separate
lakes Superior and Michigan, is a far
cry indeed from the cosmopolitan
south.
In the mid-seventeenth century, French
explorers forged a successful
trading relationship with the
Chippewa, Ontario and other tribes.
The British, who acquired
control after 1763, were far more
brutal: Governor Henry Hamilton was
known as the “Hair Buyer of
Detroit” for his advocacy of taking
scalps rather than prisoners. Ever
since, Michigan’s economy has
developed in waves, the
eighteenth-century fur, timber and
copper booms culminating in the state
establishing itself at the forefront
of the nation’s manufacturing
capacity, thanks to its abundant raw
materials, good transportation links,
and the genius of innovators such as Henry
Ford. Despite the slumps of the
Seventies and Eighties, car production
remains the major source of Michigan
income – and tourism is now a
four-season money-spinner.
Click here to go to
Michigan State web site.
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