Tourism Industry
Fishing was not the only industry flourishing in Mackinac after the Fur Trade disappeared. The tourist industry in Mackinac Island took off in 1887 as an “exotic vacation spot” because railroad companies, the Michigan Central Railroad and the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, and a steamship company, the Detroit and Cleveland Navigation Company wanted to maximize the utilization of their transportation facility (Raver-Lampman 1996). In order to attract visitors, these three companies worked together and built the famous Grand Hotel in just three months. The Grand Hotel flourished to being a popular summer vacation spot and became an essential component of the island’s economy. It created demand for summer workers to operate the hotel. Also, the rise in tourism industry created a spillover effect to the rise in sport fishing (High Cliffs).
Mackinac Island has undergone an unexpected shift in its main industry, from the Fur Trade to the fishing industry, and from the 1880s up until now, the tourism industry. It is important to note that the shift was toward secondary industries, fur and fish, to a tertiary industry, fishing. This observation then raised the main question as to why Mackinac Island succeeded in transitioning into a new industry as opposed to other places such as Kennecott, Alaska, an abandoned copper mine that flourished from 1900 to 1938 (Cronon 1992), or the short-lived Pithole, Pennsylvania, a ghost-town previously full of oil reserves fully operating between 1865 to 1870 (Peterson 1999). On the other hand, the success of Mackinac Island seemed very ironic. The island initially strived by being an Island that exploited and relied on natural resources to boost their economy, however, their success now is attributed to their reserved and untouched natural terrain. We can see this view from the guidebook “In Summer Days” by Frank J. Bramhall written in 1886. During the boom of the tourism industry, the author described Mackinac Island as a place that has its “own wonderful natural beauty”. Bramhall continues to describe the island’s natural landscape as the “romantic” structure of the limestone, the “magnificent view” of the lakes and a “grand sight” of the sunrise or sunset. He closes the chapter from the guidebook with a quote from Horace Mann; “I never breathed such an air before. I think that this must be some that came clear out of Eden and did not get cursed.” From the descriptions offered in the book, we can conclude that in the late 1880s, the island was a popular destination as it offers a place that seemed to have been orchestrated by nature perfectly. Mackinac Island in 1944
Mackinac Island Today
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In addition to that, we can draw a parallel with the experience from the industrial revolution, longing for a more innocent time. According to the lecture given by Professor Perrin Selcer, that as the industrial revolution progresses, people started longing for a more simple time as described by Oliver Goldsmith in “The Deserted Village” in 1770. Mackinac Island serves this purpose as it provides a place that is nostalgically simpler. According to an interview with Proffesor Blouin, a University of Michigan history professor, as more industries grew in the south, people started looking for leisure spots in the North. There was a demand for something less industrialized and Mackinac Island provides exactly that. According to the Mackinac Island’s tourism website, there are activities in the island that people today would not do as much anymore. The island has an absence of automobiles and people are only allowed to commute around the island with bicycle, horse drawn carriage or foot. This special restriction in the island brings back the people to the past, where things were simpler and less industrialized.
Another reason why Mackinac Island was able to flourish as a tourism spot came from the government support. Kennecott did not succeed like Mackinac Island that was not under government support causing people to act in a profit-oriented manner according to their own self-interest. On December 2, 1874, Senator Thomas W. Ferry introduced the Senate Bill 28 in which he asks to “set aside a certain portion of the island of Mackinac and the straits of Mackinac, within the state of Michigan as a national park”. The president signed the bill on March 3, 1875. In 1895, the state took over the park (Karamanski, 86) and it is now referred as Mackinac Island State Park and includes the historic Fort Mackinac along many other historical sites. There are certainly many factors that contribute to the success of Mackinac Island. Many of them are uncontrolled ones such as the beauty of the island. But there is an important that we can control, the government support. The case of Mackinac Island one again proves that government intervention can improve economic efficiency. Mackinac Island State Park
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