Re: Greetings from Michigan

26
AlastorRussell wrote: The story's accurate, actually. Michigan's original territorial boundaries only included the eastern portion of the UP, while the western portion was divided between Wisconsin and Minnesota. Andrew Jackson offered Michigan the remainder of the UP in return for Michigan ceding its claim to the Toledo Strip. This was considered a loss for Michigan at the time because the UP was just vast, unpopulated lakeshore.

Personally, I think Michigan won in the long run.
Absolutely. But the story is even crazier than that.

If you've ever seen maps of that vintage, you can start to understand how it happened - surveyor error. When they drafted the borders of Ohio prior to statehood, they assumed Toledo lay south of the southernmost point of Lake Michigan, and the Ohio territory ran at least to the Maumee River if not Detroit. Ohio threatened to block Michigan's accession to statehood, but ironically the paperwork for Ohio's own statehood had never been properly finalized. Many years later, legal pedants noted that Congress had never ratified the Ohio Constitution, a mistake that wasn't corrected until Eisenhower's presidency, in 1953.

Technically, the Buckeye State would the 48th state, but there would be 150 years of representation without authorization that would have to be revisited, so statehood was granted retroactively.
[url]https://www.ohiohistory.org/ohio-t ... 20problem.[/url]

Somehow, Michigan is one of the states that I have managed to avoid visiting. Sure, I've flown through Detroit, but never left the airport, and never drove through. One of these days, I need to fix that.

Re: Greetings from Michigan

28
highdesert wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 6:49 am Welcome from So Cal ! :wave: I was born in a village on Lake Michigan.
What a coincidence, so was I. I was born in a real cute little village, really more of a settlement, on Lake Michigan. Not sure if you've ever heard of it. It goes by the name of "Chicago", which comes from an Algonquin word for "the stink of wild onion".

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