Timeline of Michigan history

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History of Michigan
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French colonization

British colonization

U.S. territory
  • 1812 Detroit and Mackinac Island were captured by the British in the War of 1812.
  • 1813 Detroit was recovered from the British by future-President William Henry Harrison.
  • 1813 Lewis Cass became Territorial Governor.
  • 1817 The University of Michigan was established in Detroit, the first public university in the state.
  • 1818 The British ceded control of the Upper Peninsula and the St. Clair River islands to the U.S. after the Treaty of Ghent and border negotiations were concluded.
  • 1819 In the Treaty of Saginaw, the Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi ceded more than six million acres (24,000 km2) in the central portion of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan to the United States.
  • 1821 With the Treaty of Chicago, the Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi ceded all the lands south of the Grand River to the United States.
  • 1823 Congress transferred legislative powers previously exercised by the Territorial Governor and Judges to a nine-member Legislative Council, appointed by the U.S. President, who selected them from eighteen persons chosen by the people. The Council was expanded to thirteen members in 1825 and made an elected body in 1827.
  • 1824 The Chicago Road was surveyed between Fort Dearborn in Chicago and Detroit. Besides its original military purpose, it became a major avenue for settlement and trade.
  • 1828 The British turned over their fort on Drummond Island to the United States.
  • 1828 Lewis Cass and Henry Schoolcraft established the Historical Society of Michigan.
  • 1832 The Territorial Capitol was built in Detroit at a cost of $24,500.
  • 1833 The Detroit Arsenal was constructed in Dearborn, Michigan, to serve the territorial militia and the regular army.
  • 1835 The First Constitutional Convention was held. Stevens T. Mason was inaugurated as the first Governor of Michigan. A minor conflict with Ohio, known as the Toledo War, over an area including the city of Toledo, Ohio, delayed Michigan statehood, because the State of Ohio objected.
  • 1836 Michigan accepted Ohio's claim to Toledo and the Toledo Strip and received, as compensation, the eastern three-fourths of the Upper Peninsula.
  • 1836 In the Treaty of Washington, representatives of the Ottawa and Chippewa nations of Native Americans ceded an area of 13,837,207 acres (55,997 km2) in the northwest portion of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and the eastern portion of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This area represents approximately 37% of the current land area of the state of Michigan.
  • 1837 Michigan was admitted as a free state into the union (the 26th state). It was admitted a few months after the slave state of Arkansas.

As a U.S. state
  • 1837 The Panic of 1837 was a severe setback to the nascent state bank and to several ambitious programs of public improvements, including the Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal.
  • 1838 The Patriot War saw Irish nationalists invade Upper Canada from southeast Michigan.
  • 1840 Douglass Houghton reported finding copper deposits on the Keweenaw Peninsula.
  • 1842 The Treaty of La Pointe was the last Native American land cession in Michigan.
  • 1846 Marji-Gesick, an Ojibwa Indian, pointed out a large deposit of iron ore to prospector Philo Everett near the present-day city of Negaunee.
  • 1847 Under the leadership of Albertus van Raalte, Dutch Calvinist separatists founded Holland, Michigan, in southwest Michigan.
  • 1847 A law was passed by the State Legislature to re-locate the state capital from Detroit to a site "in the township of Lansing, in the county of Ingham".
  • 1849 Michigan State Normal College was founded in Ypsilanti as the first normal college west of the Appalachian Mountains.
  • 1854 The first official meeting of the group that called itself the "Republican Party" was held in Jackson.
  • 1855 Michigan State University was founded as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, becoming the first land grant university in the United States.
  • 1861-1865 Michigan sent 90,000 men, nearly a quarter of the state's male population, to fight in state regiments in the Civil War.
  • 1871 Fires burned Manistee and Holland.
  • 1872 The first rail connections reached Northern Michigan port cities. The Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad reached Traverse City in December 1872 (via Walton Junction and Traverse City Rail Road Company) and reached Petoskey in 1873. The Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad completed its terminal at Ludington in 1874. While the Michigan Central Railroad reached Otsego County in the fall of 1872,[1] Cheboygan[2] and Mackinaw City did not have rail service until the early 1880s.[3]
  • 1879 The new State Capitol was dedicated in Lansing. The structure cost $1,510,130.
  • 1890s and 1900s (decade) Ford, Chrysler and General Motors were among many automotive companies founded in southeastern Michigan.
  • 1919 The State Trunkline Highway System was created as an act of the state legislature which took effect on May 13.
  • 1928 Construction of the Ford River Rouge Plant was completed. It was the largest integrated factory complex in the world, employing 100,000 people
  • 1929 The Ambassador Bridge opened between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. It was the longest bridge in the world when built. The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel opened the next year.
  • 1937 The Flint Sit-Down Strike ended with official recognition of the United Auto Workers by General Motors.
  • 1941-1945 During World War II, Detroit was called the "Arsenal of Democracy" for its wartime industry; Fort Wayne was the largest motor vehicle and parts depot in the world.
  • 1943 A riot broke out, pitting whites against blacks during wartime.
  • 1950 Detroit was the 4th largest city in the U.S., with 1.8 million people.
  • 1957 The five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge opened on November 1.
  • 1959 Motown began recording music in Detroit.
  • 1960 Census results revealed a 1.45 million increase in state population, the largest in state history.
  • 1967 Race riots struck the city of Detroit. After five days of rioting, 43 people were dead, 1,189 injured and over 7,000 arrested. The riot had lasting effects on the entire metro region and is usually cited as one of the reasons the Detroit area is among the most segregated areas in the United States.
  • 1974 Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids became the 38th President of the United States.
  • 1987 Michigan celebrated 150 years of statehood.
  • 2001 The emigration rate for Michigan began to exceed the immigration rate.
  • 2002 Michigan elected its first female governor, Democrat Jennifer Granholm.
  • 2006 Michigan had the worst unemployment rate of any state, peaking at over 15%, due to the auto industry crisis and the general financial crisis.
  • 2010 Michigan lost 0.6% of its population since the previous census, the first decline in its population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau.
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See also

References and further reading
  • Dunbar, Willis F. and George S. May (1995). Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State. WM. B. Eerdmans. ISBN 0-8028-7055-4.
  • Poremba, David Lee (2003). Detroit: A Motor City History. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-2435-2.
  • Poremba, David Lee (2001). Detroit in Its World Setting (timeline). Wayne State University. ISBN 0-8143-2870-9.
  • Woodford, Arthur M. (2001). This is Detroit 1701–2001. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-2914-4.

References
  1. "The History of Otsego County". Otsego County, Michigan. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2019-09-17. In the fall of 1872, the Village of Otsego Lake was established and the railroad reached the Otsego Lake area about this same time.
  2. Friday, Matthew J. (2010). The Inland Water Route. Arcadia Publishing. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-4396-2440-1. The railroad arrived in Cheboygan in 1881... prior to this, seasonal navigation provided the only real link to places further south.
  3. "Village of Wolverine History". Village of Wolverine. Retrieved 2019-09-17. In 1881, the Michigan Central Railroad had extended their line to Mackinaw City. The Grand Rapids Railroad completed their line to Mackinaw in 1882
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