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Michigan Fast Facts
Betcha didn’t know:
- Michigan has more miles of shoreline (3,288 miles/5,292 kilometers) than the distance from Maine to Florida.
- Michigan was once governed by a politician so young he was called the Boy Governor. Stevens T. Mason took over the governorship of the Territory of Michigan in 1831, when he was only 19 years old.
- The Mackinac Bridge is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. It spans 5 miles over the Straits of Mackinac, which is where Lakes Michigan and Huron meet. The "Mighty Mac" took five years to complete and was opened to traffic in 1957.
- Sault Ste. Marie was established in 1668, making it the oldest town between the Alleghenies and the Rockies.
- The 19 chandeliers in the Capitol Building in Lansing are one of a kind and were designed especially for the building by Tiffany's of New York. Each weighing between 800-900 pounds, they are composed of copper, iron, and pewter.
- The first auto traffic tunnel built between two nations was the mile-long Detroit-Windsor tunnel under the Detroit River.
- Michigan grows more beans (black, cranberry, red kidney, and navy), blueberries, tart cherries, cucumbers, flowering hanging baskets, geraniums, Niagara grapes, hosta, and impatiens than any other state.
- Michigan is the second leading producer of celery and the third leading producer of apples, asparagus, snap beans, carrots, Concord grapes, and radishes.
- The most profitable agricultures in Michigan are milk, soybeans, corn, cattle, and hogs.
- In 1949, the Palmer Paint Company in Detroit introduced paint-by-number kits with detailed outlines of paintings to be filled in by the artist.
- American chestnut trees thrive in Cadillac, Michigan, which calls itself Chestnut Town USA. A blight that wiped out most of the nation's chestnut trees in the early 1900s spared the species in western Michigan, for unknown reasons.
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Michigan Fast Facts Archives
Michigan Fast Facts Archives
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