Saginaw Trivia and Interesting Facts
- Paramount Aircraft Corporation produced airplanes with pontoons, for water landings. From 1928-1931 the Saginaw River as used for test flights.
- Central Union, the first east side high school, opened in 1865. The classes included Latin, Greek, philosophy and analytics. Girls outnumbered boys ten to one.
- The first school in East Saginaw City was a log cabin. In 1851 it cost $810 to run the school: $230 for the teacher; $240 for a fence and two outhouses and the rest for supplies.
- German Lutherans from Franconia, in the Kingdom of Bavaria, founded missions such as Frankenmuth, beginning in 1845.
- St. Mary's had the first hospitalization plan in Michigan. The Sisters of Charity sold insurance, giving complete hospital care, for $5.00 a year, to the lumbermen.
- Saginaw's poet laureate, Theodore Roethke and 1895 Lightweight Boxing Champion, Kid LaVigne, are both buried in Saginaw cemeteries.
- The Forest Lawn Cemetery office was originally known as The Rest House, because it once served as the waiting room for streetcars.
- In February, 1984, the 10 year old member of an impoverished refugee family picked up a bottlecap he had been kicking along the sidewalk and discovered it was a $1,000 winner in a soft-drink company contest.
- In June, 1984, test tube baby firsts: Glenda Higgison of Bay City, who had undergone in vitro fertilization at Blodgett Hospital, Grand Rapids, gave birth, six weeks prematurely, to twin girls at Saginaw General Hospital.
- US-10, from Detroit to Saginaw, was once an Ottowa Indian trail.
- The Brooks Aeroplane Company of Saginaw, which began operation in 1909, was Michigan's first manufacturer of airplanes.
- It took an act of English Parliament to do it, but in 1976, women were allowed to compete for the first time for Rhodes Scholarships, which had been awarded since 1902. Dena Skran of Saginaw, a Michigan State student, received the award in 1982.
- In 1914, Kate English of Saginaw became the first female delegate to a Michigan political convention.
- Each year since 1959, the Great Michigan Foundation has designated one Michigan-made product as their product of the year. In 1968, the winner was the Anti-Theft Steering/Column Lock, developed in Saginaw.
- The Saginaw Courier-Herald was sold to Booth Publishing and merged with the Daily News on August 1, 1918. The new paper was known as the Saginaw New Courier.
- Norman Little brought the first type and printing press to Saginaw in 1836. His Pioneer-Journal was a weekly.
- The first street corner in the world to have electric light was at the corner of Washington and Genesee, outside the Bancroft Hotel. It was suspended from a rope and people came from miles and miles away to see it.
- First incandescent bulb in Michigan lit the Bancroft Hotel.
- A person from Saginaw was the first person in America to report needles in Girl Scout cookies.
- Saginaw is the site of the first mass-produced pre-cut portable homes.
- Bad roads caused our riverways to be used for the transportation of cargo. Flour was one of the first items shipped to Owosso in 1837.
- The Flint to Saginaw railroad was slow to connect because investors believed 'plank'roads were cheaper, and high-tech for the area that has so many trees and lumbering.
- Dozens of sea-worthy steel-hull ships were built in Saginaw.
- Oil discovered in 1925, two years later, over 200 wells dotted the area. So many wells caused the pressure to falter, yields dropped, the industry failed.
- Largest gray iron foundry in the world was located here during the first one-third of the century.
- In 1900, progressive Saginaw schools began vocational education courses.
- During the lumbering era, area sawmills used excess lumber to boil salt brine down into salt.
- In 1860, Saginaw County had a higher population than the entire Upper Peninsula, about 25,000.
- Saginaw hosts the largest bean elevator in Michigan.
- First women to play in the Marine Corp. band was Saginaw native, Sgt. Ruth Johnson.
- A Saginaw resident and medical student at the U of M, sold over $700 worth of his own skin to researchers while an intern in Saginaw.
- Inventor Jack Rabinovitch, of Saginaw, invented the no-nail picture hanger in 1949. The familiar hanger consists of an adhesive-backed, rectangular piece of cloth with a small metal hook inserted in the cloth.
- What are the names of the six teams that have played professional hockey in Saginaw?A. The Lumber Kings, The Wheels, The Gears, The Generals, The Hawks, and The Spirit.