Picnicking at Hannah Park on “Silk Stocking Row”
By MIKE NORTON
For years, visitors have been drawn to Traverse City’s dramatic natural beauty and its reputation as a four-season staging area for outdoor adventure. These days an entirely different group of tourists has discovered that we’re also a vibrant food and wine (and beer) destination.
But when you get right down to it, that’s a fairly shallow way to encounter a community and its people. There’s much, much more to Traverse City than its scenic and recreational qualities. We have a brief but dramatic past – a story in which Native Americans, missionaries, lumberjacks, fur traders, fishermen and farmers all played important roles. And now, thanks in large part to persistent questions from curious tourists, we’re starting to do a better job of telling that story.
For several years now, volunteers from the Traverse City History Center — a historical and cultural museum headquartered on Sixth Street in the city’s 1903 Carnegie Library building – have been conducting walking tours that highlight the city’s most interesting historical sights. This summer they’re taking an even more ambitious step by inaugurating what they’re calling a “Magical History Tour” – a 90 minute bus tour that showcases such key places as Front Street, Sixth Street, Old Town, the city waterfront and the Grand Traverse Commons.
I had the opportunity to ride along last week on a sort of “shakedown cruise” for the tour, and I think it’s got a lot of potential. Starting at the History Center, we rode comfortably through many of my favorite TC neighborhoods, as guide (and former city planner) Fred Hoisington chatted about the city’s early days as a wild lumber port, the career of founding father Perry Hannah and the most colorful of our many colorful mayors, “Wild Bill” Germaine. Obviously, a nine-mile bus tour couldn’t cover every detail of the city’s history, but it made for a great introduction.
There’s a lot to tell – which is odd when you consider that the Traverse City area was one of the last places in America to be settled. Indian hunters and French traders were the first people to visit the area, and it was they who gave the region its name – La Grand Traverse, because of the “long crossing” they had to make by canoe across the mouth of the bay. But they weren’t interested in staying; even the area’s historic Ottawa and Chippewa people didn’t arrive there until the early 18th century, and it wasn’t until 1839 that the Rev. Peter Dougherty established the first permanent settlement, an Indian mission at the tip of the Old Mission peninsula.
By 1847 a small but growing community was forming around the mouth of the Boardman River. In 1852 the little sawmill town was christened Traverse City — but until the first road through the forest was built in 1864 it remained a remote outpost, accessible only by water. It must have been a prosperous outpost, to judge by the number and size of the homes and public buildings that were built in the waning years of the century. The neighborhood along Boardman Avenue and Washington Street preserves some of Traverse City’s oldest and most ornate homes, many in the fanciful Queen Anne style, while the turn-of-the-century mansions of Sixth Street (known as “Silk Stocking Row”) include Perry Hannah’s immense 32-room “retirement house,” which dates to 1893.
After decades of neglect, our downtown has been extensively restored and is now a picturesque and pedestrian-friendly reminder of the city’s historical roots. Its tree-shaded sidewalks now border shops, restaurants and galleries that have made creative use of the Victorian buildings they occupy. Two special landmarks are the ornate 1891 City Opera House, reopened after more than $9 million in exquisite restoration work, and the art deco State Theatre, now the home of the Traverse City Film Festival.
Of course, not everyone in 19th-century Traverse City was a millionaire. The city’s west side – known as Slabtown – was home to mill workers and skilled woodcarvers, including a substantial community of Bohemian immigrants who built tidy cottages for themselves out of scraps from the sawmills. Many of their homes are still standing, and so is Sleder’s Family Tavern, a 123-year-old social club that is still a favorite hangout for locals and visitors alike.
When the lumber boom peaked, its place in the local economy was taken by manufacturing and agriculture – potatoes, apples, and eventually cherries. But the city’s biggest economic windfall came in 1885, when it was designated as the site of the Northern Michigan Asylum, a huge state institution whose founders believed mental illness could best be treated by a combination of healthy food, exercise and beautiful natural surroundings. The asylum became one of the city’s major employers and eventually housed a population several times larger than that of the town itself.
Spring at the Grand Traverse Commons
In what may be the country’s largest historic re-use project, the 480-acre site of the former hospital – now known as the Grand Traverse Commons — is being redeveloped into a unique “village” of shops, restaurants, apartments and galleries. Developers are preserving the castle-like Italianate century buildings that once housed staff and patients, while its lovely wooded campus has become a favorite place for hikers and cyclists.
If you’re interested in trying the Magical History Tours, they’ll be holding them on Fridays and Saturdays at 10 am and noon; after Memorial Day weekend they’ll be held on Mondays (when tickets are only $10) and Wednesday through Saturdays. Aside from those discount Mondays, tickets are $14.95 for adults and $10.95 for students and seniors.
Photo by Tommy Lee Byrd, The Great Race
The rally is not really a speed race. Instead, each vehicle is provided with a driver and navigator who are given precise instructions each day. Following specific course instructions, teams navigate through 4 to 7 timed checkpoints each day. Their arrival time at each checkpoint is recorded and compared against the perfectly driven route, with each second off the perfect time, (either early or late) counted as penalty points. The winning team is the one with the lowest overall score (the most accurately driven route) at the end of the event.
