Fact Verified Verified — a reviewed claim with a dated source
Governor Jennifer Granholm signed the 2008 legislation creating the nation's most generous film incentive; over 150 films received incentives before the program ended in July 2015.
Place · USA
Michigan
USA
104 published facts
Verified facts
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In use since the late 1960s, Michigan lefts reduce crashes 30-60%, cut head-on left-turn crashes 60-90%, and improve traffic capacity 20-50%.
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Pure Michigan went national in 2009 and was named one of Forbes' 'Top 10 Best Destination Brands of All Time' in 2011.
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Michigan tourism is highly seasonal — summer peaks, winter is the statewide low — though ski areas and festivals like the Michigan Brewers Guild Winter Beer Festival generate off-season demand; Grand Rapids maintains more consistent year-round occupancy.
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Michigan-Ohio State is widely described as the most culturally significant college football rivalry in America.
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Upper Peninsula residents sometimes hold their left hand above the right to represent the U.P. on the hand-map.
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Superman ice cream — Michigan's red, blue, and yellow tri-color scoop — predates the 1938 Superman character and is commonly attributed to Stroh's Prohibition-era ice cream operation; DC Comics never licensed the name, so shops sell it as 'Scooperman' or 'SuperScoop.'
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The Michigan-Ohio State rivalry traces to the 1835 Toledo War — a bloodless border dispute over a 468-square-mile strip; Michigan lost the Toledo Strip but received the Upper Peninsula as consolation for statehood.
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About 47% of Michigan's visitors are Michiganders; top feeder states include Illinois (especially Chicago), Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Texas, Minnesota, Missouri, and Pennsylvania — over 90% of surveyed visitors came from just 10 states.
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Author Edward McLelland connects many Midwestern speech patterns, including 'ope,' to German and Scandinavian immigrant influences.
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The Mackinac Center has questioned Tourism Economics' multiplier methodology; the $30.7 billion direct-spending figure is the firmer number versus the $54.8 billion total.
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Viking's expedition ships Octantis and Polaris (378 passengers each) sail Great Lakes itineraries calling at Alpena, Mackinac Island, Traverse City, Detroit, and Houghton — with NOAA scientists aboard every Great Lakes voyage conducting research and lectures.
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Kid Rock's 'All Summer Long' (2008) opens 'It was 1989…summertime in Northern Michigan' — a love letter to Michigan lake summers, campfires, and sand bars.
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Of 32,017 Michigan respondents to the Pop vs. Soda Project — the highest count of any state — 64.01% said 'pop,' 34.03% 'soda,' and 0.72% 'coke.'
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Michigan has approximately 120 lighthouses — more than any other U.S. state.
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As of early 2026 Michigan has no active film tax incentive; the bipartisan Michigan Multimedia Jobs Act has been proposed but not enacted.
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Of Michigan's Great Lakes shoreline, 1,056 miles are island shorelines; NOAA's alternate methodology puts the total at 3,224 miles.
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Michigan's state bird is the American Robin, adopted 1931.
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Michigan-rooted songs include Gordon Lightfoot's 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,' Kid Rock's 'All Summer Long' ('summertime in Northern Michigan'), and Sufjan Stevens' entire 2003 album Michigan.
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Michigan's state flower is the Apple Blossom, adopted 1897.
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Tim Allen has narrated the Pure Michigan tourism commercials since 2006 and maintains residences in Michigan.
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Michigan State University's Sociolinguistics Lab (the MI Diaries Project, led by Betsy Sneller) has formally studied 'ope' as a Michigan linguistic marker.
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The term 'Mitten State' was first used in 1891, and the hand-map habit became common in the early 1900s.
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Michigan's state gem is Chlorastrolite — Isle Royale Greenstone — adopted 1972.
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Direct visitor spending in Michigan reached $30.7 billion in 2024 (up 4.9%), with total economic impact of $54.8 billion.
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Taylor Hale went on to finish second on The Amazing Race Season 38 (2025) alongside a fellow Big Brother alum.
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The Petoskey stone became Michigan's official state stone in 1965 — a fossilized rugose coral, Hexagonaria percarinata, that lived about 350 million years ago in the Devonian period.
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The Senate Fiscal Agency found Michigan's film incentive returned roughly 11 cents on the dollar, at a total cost near $500 million; the skilled crew base dispersed to Georgia and New Mexico.
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The 45th Parallel — halfway between the Equator and North Pole — crosses Michigan near Gaylord, Traverse City, and Petoskey.
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In 2025, a Michigan state representative introduced legislation to make Vernors the official state beverage, reigniting the statewide pop debate.
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In 2024, Pure Michigan influenced over 789,000 leisure trips and generated $1.3 billion in visitor spending, on an annual budget around $30 million.
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Wheel of Fortune's official YouTube channel has published a video titled 'M for Michigan!' confirming Michigan-themed puzzles appear on the show.
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Iris Herrera of West Michigan competed on The Voice in 2025.
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Michigan was the second state — not the first — to number and post a state trunkline highway system; Wisconsin was first.
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In the Portal video games, Aperture Science is located in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
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The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975, with all 29 crew lost; Gordon Lightfoot wrote and recorded his ballad within the following year.
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Lake-effect snow forms when cold air crosses relatively warmer Great Lakes water, picking up moisture that dumps as heavy snow on downwind shores — and Michigan's west coast sits directly downwind of Lake Michigan.
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During Pat Sajak's final week hosting Wheel of Fortune in 2024, David Livermore of Mackinac County won a cruise plus more than $18,000 by solving the puzzle 'UPPER PENINSULA OF MICHIGAN.'
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'All Summer Long' — sampling 'Sweet Home Alabama' and 'Werewolves of London' — hit #1 in Australia and six European countries and became Kid Rock's first top-10 country hit.
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Blue Moon is a mysterious Michigan-specific ice cream flavor described as tasting like almond extract, marshmallow, or fruity cereal.
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Michigan's Upper Peninsula drew $1.6 billion in visitor spending in 2023 (+7.7%), led by Mackinac County ($309.4M), Marquette ($268.3M), and Chippewa ($176.2M).
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Over 425 miles of Michigan roads use the Michigan left design.
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Michigan's statewide hotel occupancy in June 2025 was 65.7% (vs 65.5% in June 2024), above the U.S. national average of about 63%.
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The Pure Michigan campaign influenced over 789,000 leisure trips and $1.3 billion in visitor spending in 2024, returning $79 million in state tax revenue (SMARInsights, April 2025).
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Michigan is the only U.S. state whose streams and rivers lie almost entirely within the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence watershed.
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The American Pie series is set in the fictional town of East Great Falls, Michigan.
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Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000) is set in fictional 'Chippewa, Michigan,' Station Eleven (HBO) is set in Michigan, and Ash vs Evil Dead is set in 'Elk Grove, Michigan.'
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The rivalry's cultural zenith was 'The Ten Year War' (1969-1978): Bo Schembechler vs. Woody Hayes, when the Big Ten title and Rose Bowl berth annually came down to The Game.
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The Great Lakes cruise market rebounded to roughly 150,000 passengers in 2022 (+25% over 2019) and topped $200 million in economic impact by 2024; the season runs late May to mid-September, locked by lock and lake-freeze schedules.
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The Cornish pasty came to Michigan's Upper Peninsula with copper miners in the early 1840s — a hand-held pastry of beef, potato, rutabaga, and onion designed to be eaten underground, with a thick crimped edge as a discardable handle for dirty hands.
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Pure Michigan's iconic music is the theme from The Cider House Rules (1999).
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Michigan is the only U.S. state consisting of two peninsulas — the Upper and Lower — separated by the Straits of Mackinac, which connect Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.
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Michigan welcomed 131.2 million visitors in 2024 — up from 128.3 million in 2023 and 125 million in 2022, a record surpassing pre-pandemic levels.
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Michigan has 129 lighthouses — more than any other U.S. state.
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Michigan's 3,288-mile freshwater coastline is longer than the U.S. Atlantic seaboard's outer coastline from Maine to Florida (roughly 2,069 miles) — a comparison the State of Michigan uses officially.
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Michigan tourism generated $3.6 billion in state and local tax revenue in 2024 and supported 351,292 jobs — 1 in 17 Michigan jobs.
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Michigan's state song is 'My Michigan' (Kavanagh & Clint), adopted 1936.
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University of Michigan linguist Anne Curzan has confirmed the pop/soda distinction is not disappearing; the Harvard Dialect Survey corroborates 'pop' dominance across the Midwest.
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Michigan's state fish is the Brook Trout, adopted 1965.
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The Michigan left prohibits traditional left turns on divided boulevards: drivers pass the intersection, U-turn at a median crossover, then turn right.
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A leading theory holds 'ope' originated with Norwegian immigrants who settled the Midwest — it differs meaningfully from 'oops.'
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The Pure Michigan campaign launched in May 2006, created by McCann Erickson for Travel Michigan; Detroit poet Jessica Care Moore joined Tim Allen as a second narrator in 2023.
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Abraham Lincoln popularized 'Michigander' in an 1848 Congressional speech mocking Lewis Cass — 'gander' meant 'fool' in 19th-century slang, so it began as an insult.
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The dividing line between East Coast 'soda' speakers and Midwest 'pop' speakers is said to fall between exits 41 and 42 of the New York State Thruway.
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'Ope' functions as a discourse marker that's unusually easy to adopt — transplants to Michigan pick it up quickly.
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The Friday fish fry is a Michigan institution rooted in Catholic immigrant communities: yellow perch (mild and sweet), Lake Michigan whitefish (clean and meaty), walleye (prized texture), and lake trout are the canonical species.
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Canadian tourism to Michigan dropped approximately 30% in 2025 amid tariff disputes, currency weakness, and political friction; Pure Michigan shifted marketing to Midwest domestic travelers.
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'Not So Pure Michigan' — John Kerfoot's parody series using a Tim Allen soundalike — lampoons Michigan cities and has become a recognized genre of its own.
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Michigan accounts for approximately 62% of total Great Lakes coastline.
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The Lake Michigan Shore AVA in southwest Michigan is the state's largest wine region, holding roughly 90% of Michigan's total vineyard acreage across more than 10,000 acres in the 'fruit belt' between the Indiana line and Saugatuck.
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Michigan's state tree is the Eastern White Pine, adopted 1955.
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Taylor Hale, former Miss Michigan USA, won Big Brother Season 24 in 2022 — the first Black woman to win the show.
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A September 2020 Final Jeopardy in the category 'The Great Lakes' drew its clue from an 1855 poem about the Native American name for a Great Lake — the answer was Lake Superior.
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Michigan has 3,288 miles of Great Lakes shoreline — the longest freshwater coastline in the world, and second among U.S. states only to Alaska overall.
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Lake Michigan is the only Great Lake entirely within the United States.
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Muskegon, Grand Rapids, Traverse City, and Kalamazoo all receive significant lake-effect snow off Lake Michigan; Maple City averages 151.3 inches per year and Gaylord 149.6.
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The Detroit News uses 'Michiganian' while the Detroit Free Press uses 'Michigander'; some consider Michigander sexist (a gander is a male goose), inspiring the joke alternative 'Michigoose.'
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Henry Ford himself referenced 'the thumb of the mitten.'
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The first roadside park in the U.S. was established in 1919 along US-2 in the Upper Peninsula.
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Michigan tourism generated $54.8 billion in total economic impact in 2024, with 131.2 million visitor trips, $30.7 billion in direct visitor spending (+4.9%), $3.6 billion in state and local taxes, and 351,292 jobs supported (Tourism Economics / Travel Michigan).
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Four Great Lakes touch Michigan — Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie — more than any other state; only Lake Ontario doesn't.
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Every track on Sufjan Stevens' Michigan album is named after something Michigan-specific; the record is considered a critical milestone in indie folk and has kept Michigan in indie music culture for two decades.
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'Ope' — the reflexive Midwestern interjection — derives from 'oops' (per linguist Ben Zimmer) and went viral in October 2017 when Midwesterners collectively realized on Twitter they all say it.
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Michigan lawmakers proposed a film-incentive revival in 2023 with a new 25-30% tax credit structure.
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In January 2020, a Jeopardy! Double Jeopardy clue about Michigan's mitten shape went viral when the Interlochen Center for the Arts posted it with the caption 'It's a Hand! It's Michigan!'
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'Michiganian' dates to about 1805 and 'Michigander' to about 1820; in 2017 the Michigan Legislature unanimously changed the Historical Markers Act to 'Michigander,' though the U.S. GPO still lists 'Michiganian.'
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Michigan's fall color progression runs north to south over nearly a month: the western Upper Peninsula peaks roughly Sept 29 - Oct 10, northern Michigan Oct 9-27, west Michigan lower Oct 3-17, and southern Michigan Oct 15 - Nov 3.
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Superman ice cream remains primarily a Michigan and Midwest regional item, though it appears in select shops nationally.
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Governor Snyder capped the film incentive at $25 million in 2011; it was eliminated entirely on July 10, 2015.
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'Up North' is Michigan's cultural phrase for vacation mode — cabins, lakes, forests; where it starts is perpetually debated, with purists insisting it begins past the Mackinac Bridge.
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To avoid DC Comics' trademark, brands sell Superman ice cream as 'Scooperman' (Meijer), 'Super Scoop' (Hudsonville), or 'Super Rainbow.'
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Lakeshore regions along Lake Michigan often hold fall color longer than inland areas because cooler lake breezes delay the turn, offering a second viewing window.
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'Michigander' has decisively beaten 'Michiganian': a 2011 poll showed 58% preferred Michigander versus 12% for Michiganian.
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The live version of Bob Seger's 'Night Moves' (1976) places the song 'summertime in southern Michigan'; Rolling Stone named it Song of the Year 1977.
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Michiganders use their right hand, palm out, as a map of the Lower Peninsula: thumb = the Thumb, fingers = northern Michigan, palm = central/western, wrist = southern.
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The mitten-shaped Lower Peninsula measures 277 miles north-south and 195 miles east-west; the Upper Peninsula is heavily forested with mountainous terrain in the west.
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Michigan's state wildflower is the Dwarf Lake Iris (1998), state fossil the Mastodon (2002), state reptile the Painted Turtle, and state soil Kalkaska Sand (1990).
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Sufjan Stevens' 'Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State' (2003) was the first installment of his planned 50 States Project — which ultimately produced exactly two albums: Michigan and Illinois.
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Michigan enacted a 42% refundable film tax credit in April 2008 — the nation's most generous at the time — and film spending surged from $2 million (2007) to $125 million (2008), creating roughly 2,800 jobs.
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Michigan has 420 craft breweries per 2024 Brewers Association data — 9th nationally, 5.6 per 100,000 adults — and held steady around 400 through 2024-25 even as US closures outpaced openings nationally for the first time since 2005.
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The annual beacon-lighting ceremony at Split Rock Lighthouse honoring the Edmund Fitzgerald's crew was inspired by Gordon Lightfoot's song, which still experiences periodic TikTok revivals.
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The 'Pure Michigan' phrase was coined in 2006 by McCann Detroit employee Mark Lantz; Governor Granholm allocated a $45 million tourism fund at the campaign's launch.
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At least 7 known Underground Railroad routes traversed Michigan, with an estimated 200 stops statewide between the 1820s and 1865.
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Michigan is the 2nd largest apple-producing state in the US — 1.34 billion pounds in 2023 per USDA — with over 11 million apple trees, making the cider mill (cold-pressed cider, donuts, hayrides) the state's quintessential autumn ritual.