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Michigan History and Geography Quiz

Test your knowledge about Michigan's history, geography, and cultural identity with this engaging quiz!

#Michigan #U.S. History #Geography #Trivia #Educational

1 The state was one of only a handful to back Wendell Willkie over ________ in 1940, and supported Thomas E. Dewey in his losing bid against Harry Truman in 1948.

2 Michigan has experienced economic difficulties brought on by volatile stock market disruptions following the ________.

3 What are people from Michigan known as?

4 Which of these places is north of Michigan?

5 Clair River Railway Tunnel (________ and Sarnia, Ontario)

6 Michigan went to the Democrats in presidential elections during the 1960s, and voted for Republican ________ in 1972.

7 What is directly west of Michigan?

8 There are plans for ________ for Detroit and its suburbs (see SEMCOG Commuter Rail).

9 From 1660 to the end of French rule, Michigan was part of the Royal Province of ________.

10 What timezone is Michigan in?

💡 Interesting Facts

  • the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti Street Railway was the first operating interurban railroad in the state of Michigan.
  • the Bridge School (pictured) in Raisinville Township was the first public school in Michigan, when founded in 1828.
  • the Brown truss (pictured: truss detail) was patented in 1857, enjoyed a brief spurt in popularity, was used in several covered bridges in Michigan in the mid 19th century, and was apparently never used again.
  • the Church of Daniel's Band, based in Michigan, chose its name from the title of a sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon in London.
  • the smoking room of the D&C steamer City of Detroit III (pictured) was put on display at a museum on Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan, after the ship was dismantled.
  • the Romanesque St. Charles Borromeo Church (pictured) in Detroit, Michigan, serves a parish that was established to minister to Belgian immigrants to the city.
  • local farmers would drive rock laden wagons onto the Ada Covered Bridge (pictured) in Ada, Michigan to prevent it from washing away during floods.
  • since the 1920s, the Whittier Hotel in Detroit, Michigan, has hosted Horace Dodge, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mae West, Frank Sinatra, and The Beatles.
  • the equestrian statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko (pictured), Polish American hero of independence, which was erected around 1920 at the Wawel Castle in Kraków, Poland, has a duplicate in Detroit, Michigan.
  • the Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914 was a major labor strike action affecting all copper mines in the Copper Country of Michigan.
  • the Cross in the Woods shrine (pictured) in Michigan contains the United States' largest collection of figurative dolls dressed as nuns.
  • the Western State Normal Railroad is the only known railroad built by a university and the only funicular operated in Michigan.
  • the US National Park Service is funding improvements to county road H-58, the main access road to the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
  • the name of Shelldrake, a ghost town in the U.S. state of Michigan, was translated from the Ojibwa word for a kind of duck.
  • those crossing the Fallasburg Bridge (pictured), a Brown truss covered bridge in Vergennes Township, Michigan at a speed faster than a walk may be subject to a $5 fine.
  • the Paw Paw Railroad was the shortest common carrier railroad in Michigan.
  • the Michigan Tech Huskies, from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, have won three NCAA Division I championships in ice hockey, with players such as Tony Esposito.
  • the Eastside Historic Cemetery District (pictured) in Detroit, Michigan, contains the graves of 29 Detroit mayors, at least 6 governors, 11 senators, and a dozen cabinet members.
  • the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue is the only functioning synagogue building in the city of Detroit, Michigan.
  • the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor is a US$1 billion biotechnology initiative that gets its funding from Michigan's settlement with the tobacco industry.
  • during a copper miners' strike in Michigan in 1913, labor leader Charles Moyer was shot in the back by unknown assailants and then expelled by Calumet city police while still bleeding.
  • at 1,328 feet (405 m) above sea level, Brockway Mountain Drive in Michigan's Upper Peninsula is the most elevated road between the Rockies and Alleghenies.
  • Michigan's Mason County District Library is an umbrella entity that administers two libraries.
  • Michigan, France, and the United States have all sued for claim to the “holy grail” of Great Lakes shipwrecks, French explorer La Salle’s ship Le Griffon (pictured) that sank in 1679.
  • Bruce Hilkene was captain of the 1947 Wolverines who were selected as the greatest Michigan football team of all time.
  • Burnt Hair Records was part of Michigan's space rock music scene in the 1990s.
  • Michigan's Ludington Public Library was claimed as the library that will last a thousand years.
  • Michigan highway M-97 was simultaneously named both Reid Highway and Groesbeck Highway by different levels of government from 1927 until 1949, the year it was dedicated to Alex Groesbeck.
  • Detroit's Rosedale Park, containing 1,533 properties, is the largest district in Michigan to be listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
  • Henry Ford helped stop construction of a state highway in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in order to gain admission to the exclusive Huron Mountain Club.
  • Jennifer Granholm became the first female governor of Michigan after winning the 2002 Michigan gubernatorial election.
  • Croton Dam (pictured), on Michigan's Muskegon River, was the first hydroelectric plant to transmit power at 110,000 volts or more.
  • Dick Rifenburg was a Michigan high school state champion in basketball and track & field, but was drafted to play professional American football.
  • Spectacle Reef Light (pictured), a lighthouse on Lake Huron, Michigan, has been described as "one of the greatest engineering feats on the Great Lakes".
  • US Highway 10 crosses the Wisconsin–Michigan border via a privately-owned carferry.
  • after ceasing operations in New Jersey, the West Jersey Railroad operated in Michigan for several months before being renamed West Michigan Railroad.
  • an engineer for the Michigan United Railways devised a special shoe which allowed the motorman to cut ice build-up on the third rail, in response to Michigan's harsh winters.
  • Madeline La Framboise, a fur trader of mixed French and Native American descent, was Michigan's first successful businesswoman, and is buried beneath the altar of St. Anne's church on Mackinac Island.
  • M-69, a state trunkline highway in Michigan, was truncated in 1960 to one-fifth of its length for 33 years.
  • Emily Helen Butterfield was Michigan's first licensed female architect, and designed many college fraternity and sorority crests thanks to her interest in heraldry.
  • Laura Spurr enjoyed a long career in nursing before becoming chairwoman of the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi of Michigan.
  • M-209 was the shortest state highway in Michigan at a half-mile until 1996, serving as a connection to a former Coast Guard station.
  • 43 miners were trapped for five days underground in the 1926 Pabst Mine Disaster in Michigan.
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