Ready to brush up on your Michigan etymology? Here are some of Michigan’s most unusual names, what they mean, and where they came from.
It was Sept. 26, 1963, and a traveling circus had stopped at the South Logan Shopping Center in Lansing, Michigan. One of the show’s acts was Rajjee the elephant.
Every Michigander knows that Faygo and Vernors go way back in the Mitten State, but all of these delectable and persistently popular products got their start here, too.
Whether they’re being goofy on the field or inspiring loyalty to our team, college mascots have, er, big shoes to fill. But how are these powerful symbols created?
Today they’re hip breweries and luxury living spaces, but once upon a time they were candy factories and hospitals. These are the real origin stories of some of Traverse City’s most storied buildings.
If you care to tour the cemeteries on Mackinac Island, keep an eye out for these graves.
These five ladies didn’t need Los Angeles to make it big—all they needed was the Motor City. Relive Motown’s glory days with the stories of these Detroit divas.
Through activism, sports, astronautics, and monumental court cases, these five trailblazers made history in the Mitten...and the world.
In the music world, the unusual name of Kalamazoo has become a versatile tool for a variety of lyrics—and a popular metonym to refer to more exotic places, even if Kalamazoo isn’t so exotic itself. It’s a Michigan city, but it’s also now a big piece of lyrical Americana.
Kalamazoo is filled with factories—and it’s an industrial legacy that didn’t grow overnight. Back when railroads were a dominant form of transportation in Michigan, Kalamazoo made a name for itself as the “Crossroads of Southwest Michigan.”
