Mackinac Before Photography Described by Brian Dunnigan, Clements Library
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Brian Dunnigan speaks to the annual meeting of the Historical Society of Michigan at the Mission Point Resort.
Lobby of Mission Point Resort, Mackinac Island, features 36 foot high log posts symbolizing an Indian teepee, built by the Moral Rearmament organization in 1954-1956.
The Historical Society of Michigan picked one of Michigan's most historic sites -- Mackinac Island -- for its 135th annual meeting and state history conference.
Several hundred state history aficionados battled rain and cold on pitching ferries through the turbulent Straits to get to the island on Friday night. The lucky ones came in earlier, or later, on Saturday.
But the trials of travel were undoubtedly worth the hazards as a cornucopia of historical treasures awaited at the conference held at the Mission Point Resort.
One special treat was a presentation on Brian Dunnigan's new book, "A Picturesque Situation, Mackinac Before Photography 1615-1860," by the author, curator of maps and research and publication director at one of Bay City's gifts to the history world -- the William Clements Library, Ann Arbor.
Mr. Clements, a Bay City industrialist, donated the library and his extensive collection of books on American history, to the University of Michigan in 1922. He had collected the books while living in Bay City and incorporated the collection of Aaron Cooke, an early merchant. The library is one of the leading centers of research on early America in the nation.
Mr. Dunnigan's book includes 400 pages and 220 images of Mackinac Island and the Straits area before the advent of photography. He explained that prior to the advent of photography the island and its people were depicted through spoken tales, diaries, government documents, maps, drawings and paintings.
The first photo of the island was a shot of Market Street and Fort Mackinac taken by a German named Reinhard Wernigk in 1856, after the technology was already 15 years along.
Mr. Dunnigan, who has summered on Mackinac since 1949, used 35 sources, including the Clements, for his early images of the island. He also did a similar study on Detroit, "Frontier Metropolis: Picturing Early Detroit, 1701-1838."
The 2001 book on Detroit earned Mr. Dunnigan a State Historical Society Award of Merit for Michigan Publications.
Among other programs at the conference, Brian Suelzer, a charter class member of Mackinac College, described life on campus during the college's span, 1966-1970.
Mackinac College had an ambitious mission, "to equip each student with a thorough grounding in the main historical lines of political, economic, and social development in the Western world, in the great advances in scientific thought which underlie our modern technological civilization, and also in the philosophical and ideological forces which have shaken and shaped society."
The college's aim, according to Mr. Suelzer, was to develop leaders to meet the crises, social, political and economic, that were arising in the world in the mid-1960s.
The southeast end of Mackinac Island became known as Mission Point after the early 1820's when Reverend William Ferry, a Protestant Missionary, built the Mission House to house and teach Indian children.
The Moral Re-Armament movement in 1954-1956 built its World Conference Center on Mission Point upon the invitation of the Governor of Michigan. MRA, led by Dr. Frank Buchman, promoted a philosophy of love, unselfishness, purity and honesty in a world-wide evangelistic campaign. It was an ideological alternative to the post World War II spread of Communistic influence.
A theater boasted 50-foot trusses of Norway Pine cut on nearby Bois Blanc Island supporting the roof, and 45 tons of native stone was used in the original building.
Nine-ton, 36 feet high trusses, resembling a 16-sided tepee support the main lobby, a feature said to fulfill the Indian prophecy that "Someday, on the east end of the Island, a great tepee will be erected. All nations will come there and learn about peace."
The movie production sound stage, constructed in 1958, at that time was the second largest of its type in the world. Universal Studios leased the sound stage in the summer of 1979 to produce the motion picture "Somewhere in Time" starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. The entire cast and crew were hosted at the resort, then called "The Inn on Mackinac."
MRA, that relocated its operation to Switzerland, deeded much of the property to Mackinac College in 1966. It developed programs in statesmanship and leadership, as well as more traditional curricula.
Ohio evangelist Rex Humbard, in 1971 used of the facility as a college and religious retreat and later as a vacation resort. In 1977 the property was sold to a Dallas-based management and investment firm, which changed the name to Mackinac Hotel and Conference Center.
The property, sold in 1987, was then renamed Mission Point Resort. ###
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