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3 MUSEUM OF GREAT LAKES HISTORY RE-OPENED On Tuesday, March 14, 1956, the Museum of Great Lakes History was officially reopened to the public after having been closed since October, 1955, the last month of operations in the Schooner "J.T» Wing." The new location is on the Ground Floor of the main building of the Detroit Historical Museum, Woodward Avenue at Kirby, in Detroit. This is the first time that the Maritime Department has been located in the same building with the parent organization and if the proposed Maritime Museum Building materializes, on Belle Isle, this is a temporary arrangement. Among the advantages of the new location are, greater space, all exhibits on one level, higher ceilings, more cheerful colors, no dampness, and the office on the same floor with the exhibits. Also, there will be ample space for new and changing exhibits from time to time. The principal new feature on opening day was the collection of fine oil paintings of old Great Lakes vessels, both sail and steam. These treasures have been considered too valuable to risk in the moisture which prevailed most of the open season on the ship. They include pictures of early Detroit and Cleveland Steam Navigation Company steamers,by Seth Area Whipple, and several of Lakes schooners. There are seventeen in this hanging. Others will be shown later. New and different treatment of old subjects are possible in this larger space, and while visitors, who have seen the materials as they were displayed on the old "Wing," will recognize many of the objects they will see them in an entirely different light, thereby gaining more information. For the first time in four years, we will not have to crowd the exhibits one against the other until there is no space for groups on guided tours and the display will take on the dignity appropriate to the subject ---- Great Lakes History. Even with the increased space not all of our materials will be displayed at once. A new exhibit,in a new section will appear from time to time. During the next two years there will be new exhibits opened on an average of one every two months. Not all will feature materials not shown before, but a different presentation will do much to bring out facts that failed to get adequate attention when the facilities were restricted. The binnacle from the old gun boat "Yan-tic" which, in the "Wing," was a part of the navigator's bridge equipment, is on display, as is the old steering wheel, but they are at present shown separately. Later the ship's bridge will be reconstructed in better form than was possible on the ship at Belle Isle. For the first time we have been able to display flat, modern, charts of the Great Lakes. Later we will have a special exhibit on charts, when we will show our fine collection of early charts of the Lakes, including one done by hand, on linen, by a private cartographer, and some first-editions by the U. S. Army Engineers and based on surveys as far back as the 1840's. An exhibit of naval weapons,associated with the Lakes, consists of four boarding pikes that were at the Battle of Lake Erie shown with navy cutlass of 1862 and an old four-pound solid shot taken from the wreck of a British gun boat that was scuttled in the Thames River during the British retreat from Detroit.Boarding pikes are spear-like weapons used in hand-to-hand fighting in the days of wooden ships. While lumbering was one industry and shipping another they overlapped at some points, and log drives and rafting were very definitely water transportation. Perhaps the most interesting detail of logging has to do with the now long-forgotten practice of marking the logs with symbols somewhat similar to cattle brands. We have prepared an exhibit featuring a number of marks taken from the records in the Muskegon County Court House. Shown with these are a number of pictures of logging scenes along the rivers, and a model of a Lake Superior rafting tug. One panel exhibit carries a number of fine photographs by Elmer Trelore, showing scenes from rivers and harbors all around the Lakes. Commodity "Flow Charts" tell the story of cargo movements up and down the Lakes. These hand-painted charts were made especially for the museum. The continuity of historic models of Lakes vessels is presented in a new manner but since facts do not change the story will be the same as before; only the telling will be different. In this continuity the following models are shown, all built to one scale,thus bringing out the changes in type and the increase in size over the years.