Welcome back to Good Day
On the Road has everybody How's
your Stevens is almost gone.
Crushing it. Nice. Crushing it.
That's OK. Thankfully they're hy
enough to kind of hold this dow.
It's a little breezy and those
chilly we are really enjoying.
Shaved dice this morning. Yeah.
So I know you're from the Blissfield area.
Diane, do you know any
history about the town?
So I do know some history.
And instead of me sharing all that I know,
I met with the Blissfield Area Historical
Society and I'm going to let thm
introduce everybody to Blissfie.
Welcome to our Blissfield
Area Historical Museum.
Come in and see all of our good
history and learn about Bliss F.
It was Herbie Bliss.
He had moved from New York
and was in Monroe and then.
Decided that it was getting too
crowded and came to Blissfield.
County Sizer of the Blissfield
Area Historical Society says
Bliss settled his family the
day before Christmas in 1824,
making Blissfield the second
oldest town in Lenawee County.
Actually this property was considered
not very valuable and but once y
drained the swamp they found tht
was very fertile farmland and that was a
great bonus and drew people into town.
One prominent building with a.
Story almost as old as Blissfield itself,
is the home David
Carpenter built.
He was very instrumental in the Underground
Railroad and the Hathaway House,
one of the official stops in
the Underground Railroad.
Those slaves would stop and be hidden
there before they were taken up to Canada,
and that was the goal,
to get them to Canada.
Many knew the Hathaway House asa
restaurant and an experience foe
wealthy women visiting Richland furs.
In fact, a lot of the
ladies that would come fall
and spring to drop off and pick
up their fur coats for the vauls
because you had to keep your
furs stored in the cold storage.
During the summer, they would al
go to the halfway house for din.
So that was kind of a destinatin
from the turn of the century.
The Industrial Revolution did nt
leave Blissfield untouched. The
Continental Sugar beet factory s
built in 1903 and they processe.
Lots of sugar beets.
It was really a neat,
interesting You'd see piles and
piles of sugar beets out there r
leaving Blissfield in the 1930s.
Decades later, Blissfield would change its
school mascot to the Royals in the 1950s.
Like all small towns,
we've had our grocery stores,
our meat stores, clothing store.
Mccashens was the local dime st.
We had bakeries and
a jewelry store.
Though the scene of shops
and businesses has changed,
the agricultural community of
Blissfield continues to thrive
and is looking to celebrate
its bicentennial in 2024.
That's amazing, isn't it?
Dina Remley, a chairperson for e
Blissfield Bicentennial Committ,
is looking forward to
showing people how great our
town is. The celebration
will happen next summer,
on July 27th and 28th.
We will be doing some little
things throughout the year.
We're going to be ordering
banners and red, white and blue
flags for the whole community.
Some of the celebrations
include opening the time capsule
from the sesquicentennial in 19,
cemetery tours and even a queen
contest for the ladies who weret
least 70 years young. Very Americana.
Just like a fun celebration for
people to just come and hang oud
talk about their time in Bushfi.
For the town, it's important
to celebrate 200 years.
A bliss, our quaint, cute,
sleepy little town is still her.
It's just it's charming.
I love that you can go anywhere
and people already know who we
are and we already know people
and it's it's just a friendly,
amazing community.
So I learned a lot putting that story
together. I didn't realize that,
you know, the ladies would come,
they'd bring their fur coats,
even though they had to be in a vault
during the summer because it would be warm.
So I learned a lot just doing t.
And it was a good way to kind of brush
up my history. Yeah, really coo.
And learning that history about
the place where you grew up.
So super dies. Yeah, it started here.
Yeah, way back when. You know,
the bicentennials coming up next year.
So we're going to get excited for that.
That's a big one for sure.