12 Things From a 1970s Michigan Childhood That Kids Today Won’t Believe

Michiganders who grew up in the 1970s have stories that can stop a younger crowd mid-scroll.

Some of them sound more like a movie than a memory now.

Here are the childhood moments that can leave today’s kids doing a double take.

1. A 25-Story Department Store

A 1970s childhood in Detroit could include a shopping trip to Hudson’s, a 25-story department store.

The downtown flagship occupied an entire block.

The store put its size at two million square feet.

Hudson’s sponsored Detroit’s Thanksgiving parade, first held in 1924, until 1979, with Santa Claus closing it out.

Many kids today have little reason to picture a store that size.

The downtown store closed in 1983 and was demolished in 1998.

2. The Bob-Lo Boats

The Bob-Lo boats carried kids in 1970s Detroit to an amusement park.

The Columbia, built in 1902, and the Ste. Claire, built in 1910, made the run.

If you boarded at the foot of Woodward Avenue, the 20-mile ride to Bob-Lo Island took about 80 minutes.

The Thunder Bolt coaster, built in 1973, drew long lines.

After the classic boats stopped running in 1991, the park was shuttered following the 1993 season.

3. The Ten-Cent Bottle Deposit

The bottle deposit began as the Michigan Beverage Container Act, nicknamed the Bottle Bill, which voters passed on November 2, 1976.

It put a 10-cent deposit on empty bottles and cans of beer and carbonated soft drinks.

The state implemented the law in 1978.

If you carried empties back to a store in 1978, each container earned a dime.

4. A Roof Held Up by Air

The Silverdome hosted the Detroit Lions in Pontiac from 1975 to 2001.

The stadium opened in 1975 as Pontiac Metropolitan Stadium, and it became the Silverdome in 1977.

Looking up, you saw a Teflon-coated fiberglass fabric roof held aloft by air pressure.

The Detroit Historical Society says it had 82,666 seats, the most of any National Football League stadium.

Heavy snow damaged the roof in 2013.

Crews took the building down between December 2017 and March 2018.

5. The Blizzard of 1978

The blizzard of 1978 raged on January 26 and into part of Friday, January 27, according to The Detroit News.

Muskegon got 30 inches in 24 hours.

Detroit got 8.2 inches in the same count.

Gov. William G. Milliken declared a state of emergency and called on the Michigan National Guard to help stranded motorists and road crews.

If you were in school that January, closures in places lasted a week or more.

6. A Grand Rapids President

Gerald Ford, who grew up in Grand Rapids, took the oath of office as president on August 9, 1974.

He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1973 and won reelection twelve times, according to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.

He lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter, whose inauguration came on January 20, 1977.

Many kids today might be surprised that a president once came out of a Grand Rapids high school.

7. Edgewater Park

Edgewater Park covered more than 20 acres on Detroit's west side.

Its grounds sat at Seven Mile and Berg roads, near Grand River Avenue.

The park had a wooden roller coaster and a 110-foot Ferris wheel.

It opened in 1927 and closed in 1981, so a visit in the late 1970s caught its final years.

8. Sir Graves Ghastly

TV for a kid in 1970s Detroit could include a vampire host named Sir Graves Ghastly, played by Lawson Deming.

He first appeared on Detroit television station WJBK and hosted horror movies from 1967 to 1982.

The Detroit Historical Society says he rose from a coffin each episode and brought horror movies to Detroit and other cities.

9. Mark Fidrych's Rookie Year

Mark Fidrych's 1976 season gave kids in Detroit a Tigers rookie who talked to the baseball.

Fidrych went 19-9 with a 2.34 earned run average (ERA) and won American League Rookie of the Year honors.

On June 28, 47,855 fans packed Tiger Stadium to see him face the Yankees on Monday Night Baseball, according to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

Another 10,000 were reportedly turned away before the game.

Tigers attendance rose from 1,058,836 in 1975 to 1,467,020 in 1976.

10. Sanders' 100th Birthday

For Sanders' 1975 centennial, a replica 1890s horse-drawn wagon toured Detroit, according to the Detroit Historical Society.

Jack Sanders, the founder's great-grandson, joined city officials and celebrities to make sundaes.

Frederick Sanders opened his candy store at Woodward and Gratiot Avenues in 1875.

Sanders is famed for its bumpy cake, a chocolate cake with ridges of butter cream under chocolate ganache.

The hot fudge is perhaps even more famous.

11. Sleeping Bear Dunes

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore became a national park site when Congress established it in 1970, according to the National Park Service.

The Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, a one-way loop of about 7.4 miles, first opened to the public in 1967 and became part of the lakeshore in 1977.

Today, stops on the drive include the Lake Michigan Overlook and the Sleeping Bear Dune Overlook.

12. Kellogg's Factory Tours

Kellogg's cereal factory in Battle Creek offered public tours starting in 1912, according to Michigan BLUE magazine.

The last tours ended in 1986 amid safety and espionage concerns.

More than 6 million people toured the plant.