GREAT LAKES GEOGRAPHY

 

The Province of Ontario includes portions of 4 of the 5 Great Lakes, with the exception being Lake Michigan.  The State of Michigan includes portions of 4 of the 5 Great Lakes, with the exception being Lake Ontario.

SUPERIOR DOME

The Superior Dome is a domed stadium on the campus of Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. It opened on September 14, 1991 and is the home of the Northern Michigan Wildcat football team. The dome is 143 feet tall, has a diameter of 536 feet and covers an area of 5.1 acres. It is a geodesic dome constructed with 781 Douglas fir beams and 108.5 miles of fir decking. It is the world’s largest wooden dome. The dome features a retractable artificial turf carpet. When extended, the turf can accommodate football, soccer and field hockey. The carpet is winched in and out of place on a cushion of air. Retracting the turf carpet takes 30 minutes, with full setup taking approximately two hours. The retractable artificial turf carpet is the largest of its kind in the world.

A VIEW OF THE SUPERIOR DOME FROM LAKE SUPERIOR

By Touchdown483 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9785287

WHITE SHOAL LIGHT, MICHIGAN

The White Shoal Light is a lighthouse located 20 miles west of the Mackinac Bridge in Lake Michigan. At a height of 121 feet, it is the tallest lighthouse on the Great Lakes. The White Shoal Light is the sole “aluminum-topped” lighthouse on the Great Lakes; most of the other lanterns are cast iron. The highly visible diagonal Daymark paint job, sometimes described as red and white ‘candy cane stripe’ is the only ‘barber pole’ lighthouse in the United States. White Shoal Light is one of over 150 past and present lighthouses in Michigan. Michigan has more lighthouses (still standing) than any other state with over 120 listed. (A scaled-down replica of this light was built on Lake Havasu at Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Located on the Lake Havasu Island Golf Course, the light is operational and was dedicated on November 2, 2008).

WHITE SHOAL LIGHT, LAKE MICHIGAN

PORTAGE LAKE LIFT BRIDGE

The Portage Lake Lift Bridge (officially the Houghton-Hancock Bridge), connects the cities of Hancock and Houghton, Michigan. It crosses Portage Lake, a portion of the waterway which cuts across the Keweenaw Peninsula with a canal linking the final several miles to Lake Superior to the northwest. The moveable bridge is a lift bridge with the middle section capable of being lifted from its low point of four feet clearance over the water to a clearance of 100 feet to allow boats to pass underneath. The bridge is the world’s heaviest and widest double-decked vertical lift bridge. More than 35,000 tons of concrete and 7,000 tons of steel went into the bridge which replaced a narrow 54-year old swing bridge.

ONTONAGON, MICHIGAN

Ontonagon is a village in Michigan. The population was 1,494 at the 2010 census. Ontonagon is the westernmost incorporated community in the United States in the legally designated Eastern Time Zone as determined by the United States Department of Transportation. In the summer the sun sets over Lake Superior at 10 p.m. local time with dusk lasting until almost 11 p.m. By contrast in the winter the sun does not rise until just before 9 a.m. and it is still pitch black at 8 a.m. Ontonagon is within one degree of longitude to the east of the 90th meridian west, which is actually the meridian for the Central Time Zone. Therefore, Ontonagon is geographically situated in the Central Time Zone, not the Eastern Time Zone. As a result of this idiosyncrasy, Ontonagon actually has its solar noon occur either at or near 1 p.m. during the winter when standard time (EST) is being observed and 2 p.m. when daylight saving time (EDT) is being observed. The same is true for solar midnight, which occurs at or near 1 a.m. while on standard time and 2 a.m. while on daylight saving time.

LANSING, MICHIGAN

Lansing is the only U.S. state capital (among the 47 located in counties) that is also not a county seat. The seat of government of Ingraham County is Mason.

SELECTED DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF LANSING, MICHIGAN (SOURCE: American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates)
POPULATION:	115,222
AGE:
Median Age:	32.3
EDUCATION:
Educational Attainment:
Percent high school graduate or higher:	88%
HOUSING:
Total Housing Units:	55,199
INCOME:
Median Household Income:	38,642
ORIGINS AND LANGUAGE:
Foreign Born Population	9,807
POVERTY:
Individuals below poverty level:	27.1%
RACE AND HISPANIC ORIGIN:
White alone, Not Hispanic or Latino:	63,514
Black or African American alone:	25,341
Asian:	4,274
Hispanic or Latino (of any race)	14,012
VETERANS:	5,984

MICHIGAN STATE CAPITOL BUILDING

FIRST HIGHWAY TRAVEL INFORMATION CENTER (AKA WELCOME CENTER)

U.S. route 12 is an east-west highway running from Aberdeen, Washington to Detroit, Michigan, for almost 2,500 miles. As from the earliest days of its existence, US 12 enters Michigan from Indiana, southwest of New Buffalo and continues to the old junction of US 12 and US 112 in New Buffalo. On May 4, 2004, the Michigan Department of Transportation designated 209 miles of US 12 from New Buffalo to Detroit as a Historic Heritage Route. NOTE: Your humble blogger visited the New Buffalo Welcome Center on August 2, 2019.

WORLD'S LARGEST TIRE

The world’s largest tire stands beside I-94, near the Detroit Metro Airport in Allen Park, Michigan. The 12-ton, 80-foot-tall automobile tire was built to survive hurricane-force winds, and served as a Ferris wheel (and a huge advertisement for Uniroyal) at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. Twenty-four gondolas circled the tire where the treads are today, carrying nearly two million people. The tire was moved to Allen Park in 1966 to stand next to a Uniroyal corporate building. The tire was eventually given to Allen Park, and the city then sold it to a local businessman. NOTE: Your humble blogger attended the New York World’s Fair in 1964, but does not recall riding on the Uniroyal Tire Ferris Wheel.

FIRST USE OF A PAINTED CENTER LINE ON A ROADWAY

In the United States, the first documented use of a painted center line was in 1911 along Trenton’s River Road in Wayne County, Michigan. The idea of using a painted center line was conceived in 1911 by Edward N. Hines, the chairman of the Wayne County, Michigan, Board of Roads, after watching a leaky milk wagon leave a white trail along a road. In 1917, the idea of using painted center lines on rural state highways was conceived and/or put into action in at least three states; Michigan, Oregon and California, apparently completely independent of one another.

“Dead Man’s Curve” along the Marquette-Negaunee Road in Marquette County, Michigan, shown in 1917 with its hand-painted center line.