This past Labor Day weekend we celebrated
Pure Michigan at the Straits of Mackinac. In our itinerary included a visit to
Mackinac Island on Sunday and then a walk across the Mackinac Bridge on Monday.
If you don’t like crowds, this was not the place to be.
It had been five years since our last visit.
We noticed a few changes, mainly in the presence of new buildings and
businesses at Mackinaw City (where we stayed), but otherwise the sights and our
activities had a familiar ring. We’ve come here several times over the past
quarter of a century, and so have become acquainted with the various amenities
and assorted activities that are offered.
We took a different path though after
stepping off the ferry onto the island. Instead of renting bikes and cycling around
its perimeter—our usual first step upon arrival—we headed east on the main
boulevard until we reached a small side street. At the end of this roadway was
a wooden staircase that zigzagged up the side of the nearly vertical bluff,
providing access to a road at the top of this outcropping.
Our purpose for undertaking this steep climb
was to enjoy a closer view of the stately homes located along this route, all
of them privy to a fantastic view of Lake Huron. It was worth the effort; their
Victorian-era architecture is ornate yet elegant; the dwellings majestic in
their appearance and manner. Adding to the opulent visuals were their
well-tended flower beds—a riot of varying colors--and the manicured shrubbery
and lush green lawns.
One of the homes had a sign in the front yard,
calling the place ‘The Baby Grand’ since it resembled, albeit on a much smaller
scale, the famous Grand Motel located elsewhere on the island.
All of them, though, appeared to be quite
spacious, with numerous rooms, well beyond the scope of the average modern family
homestead where most of us sightseers hang our respective hats. I assume in the
earlier era when these summer palaces were built, extended families occupied
the numerous rooms.
The road, going west, led to Fort Mackinac,
so we went in the opposite direction. Soon we were in the state park, enjoying
the woods and undergrowth on either side, sharing the solitude with a family of
bike riders. After this brief interlude, we reached Arch Rock and were back
with the crowd. We joined them going up the steps to the viewing platforms to
study this unique geological formation.
It seemed unchanged from my last visit, yet
I’m sure some minute erosion, indiscernible to the human eye, had occurred during
that intervening time, the result of wind and the freeze-and-thaw cycle. Barring
a more hastening-circumstance, this gradual wearing away will one day spell the
end of this natural attraction. But that’s not of an immediate concern for
those of us present.
On our way back towards the city, the path
again taking us through a quiet wooded area, we noticed a sign indicating that
the island’s cemeteries were only a short distance away. So, we headed in that
direction. We’d seen them during earlier visits. However, on those occasions we
were sitting in a horse-drawn wagon and listening to the tour guide provide us
with highlights.
St. Ann’s Catholic Cemetery has the largest
number of gravesites. There’s also a small plot with the headstones of soldiers
who died while serving at the fort when it was a military installation during
the 1800’s. The place has been tidied up, and each tombstone is flanked by a
small American flag.
As
for the Protestant Cemetery, while it’s much smaller than St. Ann’s, the site is
well-known to the thousands of people who’ve gone on those tours as the final
resting place for G. Mennen Williams, known affectionately as ‘Soapy,’ who
served for 12 years as Michigan’s governor (from 1949-60) and for another 16
years on the Michigan Supreme Court, including the final four as its Chief Justice.
In between those elective positions, he was the Assistant Secretary of State
for African Affairs under President John Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson.
I had Dawn take a photo of me next to the
Williams’ monument. She then requested that I snap a picture of her beside it,
too. According to their respective grave stones, G. Mennen Williams was born
Feb. 23, 1911 and died on Feb. 2, 1988 at the age of 77, while his wife, Nancy,
was born on June 12, 1915 and passed away a few days after her 91st
birthday on June 19, 2006.
Their final resting place is an unassuming
spot, located near the back of the grounds. The combination of shade trees and
poor soil, and no doubt constant foot traffic (including ours), has left the
grass with only a tentative foothold. Only a few potted flowers, mostly
geraniums, decorate the grave sites.
His tenure as governor was a memorable one for Michiganders alive during those 12 years—both those who supported his policies and activist approach and those who opposed them. He was a larger-than-life figure, exuberant in his personality, easily recognizable with his trademark green bow tie with white polka dots and beaming smile, and politically astute.
He
spent most of his governorship at odds with the Republican-controlled
legislature, but still managed to accomplish a number of progressive measures
and leave his mark. Teachers’ salaries, school facilities, and educational programs
were improved during his administration, a farm-marketing program was
sanctioned, and commissions were established to study problems related to
aging, sex offenders, and adolescence behavior.
He
was a vocal supporter of civil rights. As the head of the Michigan delegation,
he sought to insert strong civil-rights planks in the party platform at the
Democratic National Conventions in 1952, 1956, and 1960. In addition, he
appointed the first African-American judge in the state’s history as well as the
first woman judge. He also supported the efforts of working men and women to
negotiate for decent wages and benefits and working conditions.
While those
legacies are remembered, arguably the most noticeable and enduring one is the
nearby suspension bridge that crosses the straits and connects Michigan’s two
peninsulas.
While there had been talk of building a
bridge to span these two land masses, and different routes suggested, the idea
appeared to be dead when Williams took office. He supported the efforts of W.
Stewart Woodfill, the general manager of Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel, to
revive the project and brought along the support of his fellow Democrats.
In an article “The Mackinac Bridge--A
Political History,” provided by the Clark Historical Library of Central
Michigan University, the writer noted that “For much of the 1930s the leaders
in state government discussed building a bridge at the Straits of Mackinac. Engineers were hired and plans drawn, but for
a variety of reasons construction was never begun. In 1947 concerns about the
technical feasibility of such a venture and its high cost led the state
legislature to abandon the project. Seemingly the final nail had been put into
the coffin of a bridge at Mackinac.”
However, Woodfill—described as having the
tenacity of a bulldog--disagreed with the legislature's decision. In 1949 he
formed the Mackinac Bridge Citizens Committee to lobby for a bridge.
“The Citizen's Committee worked in
conjunction with G. Mennen Williams, the newly elected Democratic governor, who
also supported building a bridge,” the article noted. “The single difference
between Woodfill's committee and the governor was party affiliation; Woodfill
recruited Republicans willing to lobby the Republican controlled legislature.
Republicans swayed by Woodfill's committee, coupled with Williams' Democratic
votes, resulted in the passage of Public Act 21 of 1950 which created a
Mackinac Bridge Authority, empowered to study the feasibility of building a
bridge at the Straits.”
That decision got the ball rolling again,
but (as the article pointed out) a few political obstacles would need to be
overcome before actual construction could begin.
“In hindsight the need for the Mackinac
Bridge seems obvious,” the writer pointed out, “but many during the 1950s
deemed it an unnecessary waste of the taxpayers' dollar.”
In 1953, the Bridge Authority, having done their study, requested a $2 million loan from the state to pay the engineers to start drawing up the construction plans. However, the then State Highway Commissioner Charles Ziegler and several legislators questioned the financial viability of the project, arguing that tolls would not generate enough money to cover the bond payments as well as the maintenance and day-to-day operations after the bridge was opened. This, they felt, would result in the project needing a permanent state subsidy. For those reasons, the request was turned down.
The legislature, after rejecting this
request, did eventually agree to allow the Bridge Authority to sell
revenue-sharing bonds to pay for the project with the payments coming from
money generated by the tolls. They, in effect, gave permission for the Authority
to proceed, but with the caveat that no money from the state’s general fund would
be forthcoming to cover any expenses.
Selling those bonds proved problematic
since private investors were wary of financially supporting this public
improvement project when the state legislature had declined to spend any tax
dollars on it, and when the highway commissioner was casting doubts on its
“viability.” After some political horse trading, the lawmakers did finally
agree to re-direct an annual $417,000 subsidy to the Bridge Authority that had
been annually appropriated to help support the car ferry service at the Straits.
With this guaranteed money, the bonds were sold.
The bridge, five miles long, was opened to
traffic in November 1957. Governor Williams, after paying the $3.25 toll fee,
had the honor of being the first to ride across the bridge, although he did so
as a passenger. The car was actually driven by Mrs. Williams due to the
governor having forgotten his driver’s license. Afterwards, vehicles lined up a
mile on both sides of the waterway began going across. A reporter, covering the
event, wrote that the motorists “swarmed” on to a bridge whose size “staggers
the imagination.”
In his remarks
on that day, Governor Williams told those assembled that “Michigan at last is
to be one state, geographically, economically and culturally, as well as
politically.”
Because officials felt that the weather at
this time of year might ruin a more formal ceremony, the official dedication
was held the following June. At that second event, Williams thanked those
responsible for building the bridge, then dedicated it to an assortment of
different groups, but especially “the millions of children from all over
America who will come to ride across it and who will see in it the spirit of
man’s conquest over the obstacles of nature.”
Williams, in his remarks, also echoed his
previous theme about unification, noting, “Where nature divided us we have
bound ourselves together with this great web of steel. This mighty bridge, the
world’s greatest, is a symbol of our strength.”
After
the formalities were concluded, the governor led a total of 68 people on a walk
from Mackinaw City to the Upper Peninsula. The following year, the Bridge Walk
was switched to Labor Day and, until 1964, the direction of walk alternated
from year to year. Since then the route has started in St. Ignace and ended at
the tip of the Lower Peninsula. This
year over 40,000 of us, led by Gov. Rick Snyder, continued the tradition
started by Soapy Williams.
In the
ensuing years, those millions of children as well as adults have indeed ridden
across this web of steel and marveled at its elegance, as well as the
surrounding beauty of the land and waters. The Mighty Mac has become, as
Governor Williams foresaw, a symbol of what unites us and binds us together.
As governor, he had possessed and gave voice
to a vision of what our state and its people could be when they joined together—a
vision not just for the benefit of his time and place, but for posterity, and not
one limited to the symbol of this bridge binding us together, but the larger
metaphor of the a helping hand—his hand and ours--extended to all Michiganders,
regardless of their circumstances.
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