Ready for Michigan’s Big 150th Birthday Party

Bob Hope, former President Gerald Ford, Esther Williams, Lee Iacocca and pianist Van Cliburn are some of the famous personalities highlighting Michigan’s 150th birthday this year. More than 2,000 special events and attractions will draw millions of visitors to help celebrate.

The theme of the sesquicentennial birthday party is that the economy of the state that put much of the world on four wheels is tilting toward national and international tourism.

The yearlong spotlight will be on a blending of cultural and historic attractions with resort and recreational assets that include 3,200 miles of coastline, the longest in the continental United States, along four of the five Great Lakes.

One of the most popular events for families on cross-country vacations will be Living Legends Week, June 7-14. It will feature a statewide canoe flotilla on waterways of the early fur traders and lumberjacks. Visitors will be invited to spend a day launching boats, camping and fishing at all state park facilities, with no charge and no licenses necessary.

Michigan’s sesquicentennial coincides with the 1987 Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution and will be an added attraction for people driving across the country to attend constitutional celebrations in Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C.

Michigan’s Gov. James J. Blanchard is telling the world that his state is standing on the “platform of the present just long enough to draw on the riches of its exciting past to shape an even brighter future.”

He has established a Task Force on the Future of Michigan Tourism to develop a five-year plan to raise state tourism from its present base of $13.5 billion to $20 billion. The auto industry is supporting the tourism drive and helping to finance the sesquicentennial birthday party.

Travelers who don’t stop in Michigan on their way east this summer may be tempted to do so during the trip home by an event that is part of the bicentennial festivities in Washington, D.C. From June 24 through July 5 the Smithsonian Folklife Festival will present 90 Michigan folklife artists in a Michigan on the Mall celebration. Michigan became the 26th state in 1837.

Detroit, long under the banner of “Automotive Capital of the World,” is also Ethnic City, U.S.A., a cross-section of more than 100 nationalities. Immigration started heavily in the mid-19th Century, then boomed early in this century when Henry Ford, of Irish heritage, announced a minimum pay of $5 a day at his auto plant.

Another appeal aimed especially at California is for “Michiganians to join our Family Reunion this year.” Michiganians number high among the Midwesterners who have trekked to California.

Culture, the entertainment industry, the historic hotels and the resorts will all be on stage this year. Interlochen Center for the Arts, in the heart of Michigan’s resort country, will meld its 60th anniversary and the 25th birthday of its Arts Center into the state’s 150th.

Celebrities attending a performance of the World Youth Symphony Orchestra at Interlochen on July 26 will include Bob Hope, former President and Mrs. Ford, Lee Iacocca and Van Cliburn, special guests will include opera star Jessye Norman, a graduate of the University of Michigan, and CBS correspondent Mike Wallace, a native of this state.

A dozen miles from Interlochen, the Grand Traverse Resort has set daily hotel rates for two at $115 this summer. Two 18-hole golf courses, one of them designed by Jack Nicklaus, plus indoor and outdoor pools, tennis and racquetball courts and a health spa are part of resort amenities.

Boyne Highlands and Boyne Mountain Resorts, with a lake shimmering on one of our favorite golf courses and ski slopes rising above them, are still taking reservations for winter skiing, but will shortly announce golf packages for the sesquicentennial summer.

On Mackinac Island, the Grand Hotel is making its 100th anniversary part of the sesquicentennial. Esther Williams has been invited to return with the Peter Duchin orchestra to this hotel where she swam in the Olympic-size pool while starring in the film, “This Time for Keeps.”

The Michigan Sesquicentennial Office at the Department of State in Lansing has prepared a schedule of the year’s events.

The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn near Detroit is changing its impressive display for the first time since 1929 with a $6 million redesign for this year, titled “The Automobile in American Life.” In Dearborn Village, which is part of this world-famous museum complex, Monday will be “wash day” for housewives in 19th-Century dress, and horses will harrow the fields.

The Iron Museum will open in May at Carp River Forge, where the state’s iron industry was born. The many museum attractions of Detroit will be enhanced this year with the move of the African American Museum into expanded exhibit space.

A new exhibit will be a 150th birthday salute called “An Epic of Courage.” It will focus on the Underground Railroad that brought blacks north out of slavery, and is being funded by black communities across the nation.

The biggest museum project for this year is the Michigan Heritage Center, a $40-million project in the capital city of Lansing. It will open on Dec. 31 as a symbolic step into the future, with displays, plaques and sculptures memorializing 150 years in each of the state’s 83 counties.

All across the state, a dozen museums under the Michigan Department of State will trace life from prehistoric Indians through the ages of mining, industrial and cultural growth. The Father Marquette Museum in the Upper Peninsula will remember the French pioneers with music and dancing July 11-12.

Ft. Wilkins will recreate a Civil War encampment. The Civilian Conservation Corps Museum at North Higgins State Park will remember what the CCC did to restore hope for many during the Depression years.

Famous Michiganians to be remembered this year include Charles Lindbergh, the “Lone Eagle,” born in Detroit, which also was the birthplace of Joe Louis, the “Brown Bomber” who became a legendary heavyweight boxing champion.

Others to be remembered range from entertainer Stevie Wonder to civil rights leader Rosa Parks; Walter Reuther, whose auto workers pioneered a new labor movement in this country; Gen. George Custer, who was married in Monroe, and Thomas E. Dewey, who went on from his birthplace in Owosso to become governor of New York and a Republican presidential candidate.

Sailabration 150 will bring thousands of boats of all types to a parade of sails beginning on the West Bay at Traverse City July 25. All 83 counties will picnic and parade while raising the statehood flag on July 4. The Sesqui Wagon Train will circle mid-Michigan June 12-27, and an Art Train will be traveling the state displaying works of Michigan artists.

Reintroducing fish and wildlife to many streams and woodlands is a birthday gift from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

For a sesquicentennial overview to help in planning your vacation this summer, contact the Michigan Sesquicentennial Office, Department of State, Lansing, Mich. 48918. Telephone (517) 482-1987. You can get details about accommodations and travel throughout the state by contacting the Michigan Travel Bureau, 333 S. Capitol Ave., Lansing, Mich. 48933. Telephone (517) 373-0670.