The Coolidge examiner., 1932-09-09

Forests nave long since yielded TO
the spacious avenues radiating from
her awn-surrounded state house,
and though the cry for reforesting
the state is widespread, the capital
and her sister cities rank among the
city's most beautifully tree-shaded
communities. Sometimes appear
ing as if buried in greenery, and for
the most part displaying regularly
spaced naples along foliage-roofed
streets, Michigan's towns thus pre-
serve a souvenir of the great log.
ging area of their state.
Michigan's forest primeval' lay
with pine and softwoods mainly to
the north of forty-third parallel of
latitude, and with the hardwoods
mainly to the south of it. A cen
tury ago her area was still 81 per
cent timbered
In the expansion period that fol-
lowed the Civil war the state
loomed up as the great pine pro-
ducer. Eastern farmers turned pi-
oneer and trekked Michiganward
for their fractional investment in
the 125,OOO,000,0O0 feet of timber
that rose north of Saginaw. The
prairie states were calling for tim
ber, and Michigan's was massed in
bigstands with easy river access to
the Great Lakes.
Up sprang 500 camps employing
$4,000 loggers. Plank roads were
laid through the wilderness. In
1875 there were 80 solid miles of
logs in the Au Ores. For more than
80 years men chopped and saws
screamed, until in 1890 Michigan's
pine numbering reached its peak
with 4,250,OOO feet.
Transition to Manufacturing.
But the young states transition
period from numbering to manufac-
turing was not accomplished with
out growing pains. Her forests
shorn, a host of lumber towns
Ludington, Cheyboygan, Bay City,
Manistee, Alpena, Muskegon, Sag
inaw-relapsed temporarily into
stagnation or ruin.
The story of Muskegon is typical
Her glories fed, her peoples
trekked, and grass grew in her
streets. Then slowly she rebuilt her
helf on the deserts left by vanished
sawmills. How, the woodworking,
automotive and other industries
have lifted the once-ruined town to
her present prosperity is one of the
most striking stories in Michigan'S
annals.
Saginaw, once such a "SawmiD
City" that her shore area was ma
terially enlarged by filling in the
shallow lagoons with incalculable
tons of sawdust, represents a sim
liar rise, fall, and comeback. To
day she normally pays more in
freight bills on her automOtive and
other products than her famed lum-
Der cut was worth 40 years ago.
Flint took refuge in carriage
building. Many a town started di-
versifed woodworking as stop
gap. Citizens at Ludington, Man
istee, and elsewhere bored the
earth, produced brines, and made
the steam of lumber mills evaporate
the brine into salt.
There was a statewide spectacle
Of Michigan remaking herself. But
not until around the turn of the
present century did she set a firm
foot on the industrial ladder, up
which she has since made so spec
tacular an ascent.
Where the Mint Grows.
Southwest of Lansing the In
dian place-name of Kalamazoo
("Beautiful water') still holds true
by reason of the cold springs which
once refreshed the red man and
nowadays refresh a muck-land eel
cry crop valued at upward of
100000. The same muck region
puts Michigan topmost, along with
northern Indiana, in peppermint
These two sections produce, fOr
pharmaceutical and other purposes,
IS per cent of the United States
supply.
Kalamazoo paper factories, which
have produced bond and book stock
for so years, instance how Michi.
gan turned to manufacturing when
her numbering peak had passed.
Grand Rapids furniture market
comprises an international aggrega-
ton of manufacturers, buyers, and
statesmen. From a score of states
and from European countries come
the displays of furniture and in
terror decoration. These are dis
posed on the vast floor spaces of
20 factory showrooms and ten spe-
cially built exhibition buildings. The
buyers, of whom 5000 are some
times present, hail from every state
in the Union and from half a dozen
foreign countries.
Its rs furniture factories, employ
ing some $4,000 people, represent an
annual products value of about $50.-