Thomas edison. S, we are on a restored train car that represents the train car Thomas Edison road daily has a 12yearold way to detroit. A was a news butcher, meeting adler. He would have a basket with a big leather strap and walk up and down the aisles of the train car selling fruit, candy, probably cigars. We have a recreation of his local laboratory where he was the first person we know of to print the newspaper on a moving train. Life was here what like on the u. S. Coast guard cutter, the bramble, which traveled u. S. Waterways for nearly 70 years. Was Commanding Officer from 1978 to 1980. We were responsible for safe operation and navigation and we worked all of the buoys and i worked on some lighthouses from almost all the way down to toledo, ohio. We supported a Navigation System that allowed it to work in the great lakes, so all the commerce that goes on in the great lakes were depending on the navigation and the ability to navigate in those waters during the rough times and in the summertime. The mayor ofmeet port huron who explained some of the challenges facing the city today. The fourthilling on floor of the Municipal Office center or city hall, right on the st. Clair river. Probably the most Eastern Point of michigan. 30,000ulation is around people, which is a decrease. Or 60s, itthe 50s would have been closer to the 40s. As economic changes and industry changes, it has decreased over demographically, we have an assortment of different types of people, but i would call it a little bit on the distrust side. Seat,e we are this county we have rentals and social services and things like that. We dont have the most stable population. It comes and goes. Probably not the highest incomes, so it a Broad Spectrum , but it to upper income is a Nice Community to live in and a nice place to raise your family. We have a lot of Different Things going on. In this country and higher in this area. We are always a little bit higher than the rest of the county and the rest of the state because michigan is traditionally, but we have had a lot of improvements over the last couple of years. Everyone suffered in 2008 when the economy tanked and we are crawling out of it, but it takes a little longer to crawl out of it, but we have some wonderful things happening, so im proud of that. Have an interest in our downtown area. A lot of downtowns have failed since everyone moved out to the malls and now i think the mall for not doing so well. Anddowntown is revitalized we have a lot of new businesses and new restaurants and bars and quaint stores. No Big Department store or anything like that, but we are getting more lost apartments, something i would not have said years ago would go, but there has been a surge of both and we have so many that they have waiting lists. That is good because in those lofts, its the professionals and that is what you are looking for to get them to come back here. It has seemed to be successful in that manner and we also have right behind where im standing on the river, a wonderful piece of our party, our ymca which was sold to the city and this property was made development ready. Weve sold that to a developer and i think they havent decided on the exact plan, but we are still in the stages of working on a site plan. Its probably going to be at least four or five stories high, so this is going to bring a lot of people into town. Redeveloping ourselves as a place to come not only if you , getting people to live in the downtown area has in very much a part of that. History ists of our we are celebrating our sesquicentennial and theres a lot of history. We are very proud of the lighthouse and the fact that people can visit and walk out to the top. Had in the day, you shipping and logging and obviously, not today but its a very strong part of our heritage. The bridge was built in 1938 and before that, you had to take a very if you are going across and that is a cumbersome way to travel back and forth. The amount of commerce we get from canada to the United States is astronomical. A lot of people come from canada to port huron to shop. Its important that they have this rich and that lasted until the 90s. In 1997, they opened the second span of the bridge and both sides were packed going back and forth. Job andy much doing its i think in the future, port huron is only going to get better. We have had a lot of interest from investors on the other side of the state and thats one of the reasons we and that with the refurbishment of the Thomas Edison in. That was an investor from the west side of the state. I think we are getting more notice from other places. A lot of people didnt know where for huron was, they just thought it was a little town by the bridge that you drive through. I think we are getting the reputation that it is definitely worth coming here. The people are friendly and we have nice places to go, so i think we will have a resurgence as far as other investments in the community, so im looking forward to good things happening. American history tv is at the Thomas Edison museum, its one of the many places we are visiting. We will hear about Thomas Edison and his ties to this city and that building. The 20th century would look so different without Thomas Edison and label been the phonograph. These are ordinary, common things but they all came from his brain and his brain came from fort huron. He arrived here when he was seven years old and he was born he got the job as news butcher at age 12. Here, we have a vignette that shows edisons mother yelling at his teacher who called edison addled. I guess today we might say stupid or confused or mixed up and you can see here that it hurt his feelings and angered her. A lot smarter than you are and if you cant teach him, i will. So she took him home and home schooled him and he always credited his mother for making him the man he became through his kindness and through teaching him and a love of learning that he carried on his entire life. Could, inerything he the evenings as a man, he would read the encyclopaedia britannica. In school today, he might have been on ritalin or some other medicine for add or adhd. I think he just had so much going on in his head that if he werent interested in the subject matter at hand, he just didnt want to Pay Attention and wanted to explore things in his own way. We are on a restored train car used to represent the train car Thomas Edison road daily as a 12yearold boy to detroit. He was a news richer, meaning a news peddler and he would have a basket and walk up and down the aisle of the train cars selling fruit, candy, cigars, that was his job. He would arrive here at the depot at 7 a. M. And go to 8 00 orand come back at 9 00 at night and spend his time selling things to passengers. We have a recreation of his Chemical Laboratory where he was the first person we know of to print a newspaper on a moving train. Newsd access to the latest at the train offices and would get that news hot off the presses. He sold the detroit free press. During the civil war, he was , right after the civil war battle of shiloh. He convinced them to give 1000 copies of the paper on credit instead of buying them ahead of time. So he sold way more copies than he usually did. Ever the entrepreneur, he started raising the price and the closer he got, the price went up and by the time he got five cents a from copy to . 25 a copy and he sold them all out and was able to give his mother a nice chunk of change that day. He originally had this in the bedroom but his mother objected to the potential hazards from mixing chemicals, so he moved to the basement and scrounged bottles all over town and would put them in these bottles that he labeled every bottle poison to keep people out. Each bottle with a number and cap a logbook and he knew what was in each model and could safely explore the properties of these chemicals. He was testing every statement whatin the book to see if it said in the book would really happen if he experimented. He saw theee if what book was true. We have some articles found in the archaeology of his boyhood home. The home burned in 1870, five years after his parents were evicted. There on till it was excavated. Theres no way to know if all of these things came from edison but we do have printers type that matches the type used first on the train until he was kicked until it got the train car on fire. He moved the laboratory and said if press again and he stop this nonsense, could i have my job back . This is edison at the age she was at here, and just an adorable picture. In his eye very likable. I think thats how he talked people into letting him do things like run this train, for example. It takes a great deal of knowledge and skills. They knew what it took and apparently had the confidence he could do it. Nape they were taking a running the train and they were scaldingakened with a. Ot splash of dirty, oily water that was the end of his dream to be an engineer, something in this for that. He went on to such great things. Office. A telegraph trains are dispatched by telegraph, so each one has an operator. Had an interest in anything electrical, especially telegraphs. When he was a boy, it was a relatively new technology. He was four years old when it was invented. Itreally wanted to learn aptly. Not proficient and his equipment was cobbled from junk. On his way to detroit, he was acting as a news butcher and he saw the threeyearold son of the station master playing on the track. Him. Car was rolling toward nobody set the break or something. He ran and save the kid just in time and ingratitude, mr. , or owl ashought tom he went by as a use, taught him mores code properly. Months, he had become proficient enough to get his first job in downtown port huron. It was more of a general store. They sold everything. He tinkered with all the equipment, he broke the tools. Had nicer always things to say. He went to stratford junction and got a job as telegraph agent. Anywhere veryd long. He was always getting in trouble for tinkering with the equipment. At one point, he let a bottle of floor andhrough the he was fired for that. For a few years, he had three different jobs in different places around the midwest. Last long asd not an employee and it was important for him to be the boss. That is one of the lessons he learned it had to be his way or its just not going to work out for him. Mary had a little lamb, is fleece was white as snow. Model of the first phonograph and this was a popular project for people learning machine work. Made so blueprints copy if theymake a wanted to. This was recorded on tinfoil and speakuld recorded and would emboss it the tinfoil and then play it back on the other one. This is the only one that used a different recording head and you realize after that that the same would would work. Lightbulb50,000 watt that was supposed to be a perpetual memorial to edison. Edisonst in 1940 by widow who came to town for the World Premiere of young tom at the museum, we have a movie of him arriving on the old train and this is edison throws the switch. I think you need welding gobbles to look at it. It is so bright and most amos for the light all, but his favorite invention he said was the phonograph. Savegure out a way to sound and i can play this if you like. This is a model from 1905. I brought this in for memorial day. He invented the cylinder format. Him of your people might not recognize that records were shaped like this originally. This one is celluloid. Its called indestructible because the early waxwings were very fragile. This one, i could drop and it would suffer no ill effects. Heyday of the cylinder machine was roughly 1895 to 1915 or so. Makee 20s, they did cylinders until about 1929. He was always very loyal to providing cylinders as late until 19 29. His quote was genius is 1 inspiration and 99 perspiration. He was not afraid to do that hard work and he showed that in the basement of his home where he was testing every statement made in a book about chemistry to see for himself if it was true or not and it became important to have that work ethic. That showed when he was working and working onlb the compositions for the filament. He finally found the right one. Hard work and sticking to it served him well in life. Port huron is proud of Thomas Edison. Hes probably one of the most famous people in the world. Yearsnt his formative here and we still have this useful depot that he worked out of. And family are still in the cemetery and it just shows us that people from a small town can go on to do great innings and edison invented the century. Cspan is visiting for huron to learn more about the citys history. Our next stop, do we will talk at the very First White House in michigan. The state of michigan, there are over 116 lighthouses and this ones claim to fame is being the first. We just came up from the 99 steps and what we are looking at is a view of the bluewater bridges to the south and lake huron to the northeast. Source of the same clear river. Bluewatere the nice and what tourists come to this area for. When they hear this is the bluewater area, this is what they get to see and they realize they are not lying. Just north to the city, in the city limits of port huron, it gets it name from the port established here. Charles crash it built port crash it and was an engineer in the u. S. Army and was responsible for building the fort in response to an attack that could come from canada and protecting the mouth of the river. The decision to add the lighthouse was made an eight team 20s. At that time, traffic was increasing on the great lakes, so they felt this was a significant spot. In 1825, congress appropriated money to build lighthouse just south of where we are standing, right at the mouth of the river. It was built by Winslow Lewis and the construction of the building was some par and led to deterioration and soon after, it would collapse with a november storm. When the original tower collapsed, the need for a new tower was evident. The tower was moved several hundred yards to the north on lake huron and congress appropriated about 5,000. Construction began and the new tower was completed and lantern was lit in december. The lighthouse laid a very significant role because you had mariners going up and down the the water river, so was quick moving and swift. Lineg sure they were in with that area, this provided safe harbor for mariners on lake to be which could prove treacherous, especially in october or november. Its a very important lighthouse for that reason. Operational from time to time. As the need came to be, the fort would be regarrisoned and use. Aat cholera epidemic was devastating part of our history that affected the fort and surrounding areas. Michigan infantry would be mustered into service and their tactics and training, they would go on to kentucky and other points south. After the civil war, you will see dramatic changes. There is an increase in traffic for westward expansion, so the site here is going to grow. A are out ofthat date and so this will see a dramatic change during civil war and in 1861, they begin construction to expand it from 65 feet to 82 feet. This was the standard at the time. You see these towers becoming taller and they have a greater range. See a significant change in 1871, the addition of a fog signal building. In 1871, a great fire raged across michigan in the smoke bellowed out and created a difficult situation for mariners to navigate. The fog signal building that sat on the north end of our property and 10 years later, another fire came through the state and a second fog signal was added. The purpose was guiding mariners through the river. Inn the lighthouse was built 1829, the contract approved the building of the tower and a single keepers dwelling at the i doubt at the outhouse. Determined its was no longer suitable and they would Start Construction of a new dwelling. Completed andwas the fog signal buildings would run their course and be out dated by the turnofthecentury. You wouldnt see many changes until the 1930s. At that time, a new dwelling was built and you have not only the building. T another at the same time, the coast guard who was in operation at that time would build a new coast guard station. It was built 60 feet from the single dwelling and they were run by two separate government agencies. In 1938, they ran a four bay equipment building and the site would stay unchanged until world war ii. At that time, it becomes a training location for the coast guard during the war. Changedscape would also and in peacetime, the site had wealth wealth did gardens, and orchard, there were freighter hedges shaped like freighters around the light station. But during wartime, all of that goes away. We began restoration of the site. We started looking at the other buildings and their needs for restoration and looking at getting grants for the site. To restoreear plan the site and bring it back to its 1930s appearance. It was a natural fit for the time and we have one room in the keepers duplex we have restored and what it does is allows visitors to get a glimpse of what the building would look like when it is completed. Part ofa unique michigans history. We get a lot of visitors that love lighthouses and come from all over the United States and canada. What we are trying to do here is become a we can destination for tourism. Theres a lot of unique sites that provide an opportunity to catch a glimpse into the areas past. Historyeekend, american tv is featuring port huron, michigan. Cspan visited many sites showcasing the history. Following the second world war, it was the largest immigration site trailing only new york city. The bluewater bridge is a nice bridge that separates the two countries, to sister cities. Its a beautiful area. Watchhen fortunate to this structure grow and mature and become one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in america. A large part of it is recreational travel. Is 160 miles to toronto from here. 180 miles to buffalo, new york. If we had to go south of the great lakes, it would take us twice as long. We can cut our travel in half. As a kid, i used to go across it on my bike all the time. As an adult, i would go over there and do dinner and visit friends. The u. S. Dollar was really strong back in the day, so we could go get gas. It has been such an important part of my life. This is an interesting destination crossroads. In the early days, we had for trappers. Lumber was a big part of our area commerce. Trees were felled and floated down the black river further south of here and, with the railroad, that increased our agricultural trade because farmers could get their produce to market. 1859, the Canada Railroad built a train depot on this site and wanted to connect to markets here. The trains that would come to this area would stop at Point Edwards and uncouple all of these cars, put them on a car ferry. Currents withast all of this freight having to cross this area one by one. It took a long time to get these trains across, that the market was that important that they did that. The Railroad Traffic started increasing incredibly to the point where they built a tunnel under the st. Clair river that connected both canada and america in 1891. Construction,ious this was after detroit opened. Ts international bridge the construction started in 1937 and was completed in 1938. Is furthest span from us. Established a regular bussing system so people could continue to shop. We were always friends and neighbors and we always cross the way. Its not like the bridge was the first door. Its just another doorway that was open. I came to the bridge as a summer job as a toll collector and ended up staying 38 years. Small operation, a quiet border crossing. Completion of interstate 69 between lansing and port huron. Thatthat was completed, provided a straight shot from the east to the west, a great commercial route for the Trucking Companies because they could come across this structure, go into canada, come to canada and continue on out west with very little interference. Asthe need became obvious they tracked all the traffic that came across each year. 47 of the traffic was passenger, but we could see the itrease and every year, doubled and they knew they had to do something, so they did research on building a second span, but they wanted to look similar survey presented different plans so that it was still a beautiful bridge to look at. In 1997. K we opened it we closed the original one down and rebuilt it. By having two structures, it made the flow greater for the commercial aspect. Have three lanes of traffic each direction allowed us to separate the traffic and give us a much smoother flow. Capacity thanane any other crossing in the United States, so we are able to move it more efficiently. For obvious reasons, some timber 11th did a lot to put a damper on the traffic in this area. That day, everything came to a screeching halt. For hours and commercial traffic was backed up for days because they did not know what was going on. Everything came to a halt. After that, our life at the bluewater bridge changed. Wait times increased and before, and my days growing up here, you could get across the bridge with a birth certificate. In 2009, it was required you had a passport and its not as easy to go across now. Traffic does not flow as quickly as it used to back in the day. Tend to see longer lines than before. Before, you never taught about it. Youd go to canada and have lunch and be back in an hour and half. ,ut now you have two think going to come into the United States and its a process now. You have two allow customs to do the job and keep things safe. Theres always maintenance being done. It is an eyesore, but it is necessary. The bridge has become a symbol. Its our First Responders and is instantly recognizable. Ask a lot of people would take this for granted. Amazing to wake up in one city and wake up in a Different Company in a matter of minutes. Theres nothing like this. Its useful, it is friendly, it is you to full, it is friendly and very accessible. Welcome to port huron. Owner Chuck Knowlton will take us inside and show us around his collection of ice industry memorabilia, one of the largest in the country. Industry is an industry gone by. Everyone knows what packaged ice is today but the real industry was 200 years ago when they used to cut ice out of the rivers and lakes for all kinds of uses and it became an extremely large industry because everyone needed ice to cool their food for their family. 10,ecame one of the possibly one of the five Largest Industries in the United States at that time and it continued on for 100 years at least and got to the mid1900s and after world war ii, it died off because of mechanical refrigeration and home refrigerators that really took over. Ice was aly years, new thing to people, that it could cool foods and keep them fresh. Days, they used. Alt but as the ice came on the scene, they found it would work better and it became a big deal to use ice to haul all kinds of food. To start using ice was a novelty and the wealthy did start using it. In the white house, on the political scene, they got the for ace in early years lot of the runofthemill people did not have it in early years. They found ways to chip ice and make it into little cubes and have ice for drinks. Heres the most wellknown part of the industry, ice picks. Here are metal ice picks in the usually pick right here. A lot of them had advertisements on it. This one is cocacola advertising on this ice pick. Others had the name of the company on it. Down here are more different types of ice picks. This one has a bottle opener. Ice scraperse would scrape the top of the block and get crushed ice for their drink. Was ice tongs. Almost every house had ice tongs because they would need to carry the ice if they made a delivery, they would have to take the ice and put it in the ice box. It developed along with many other areas in the northern states. A lot of them were able to have ice on the rivers and lakes, so in port huron as well as other cities and towns, they started to cut the ice around rivers and lakes. As the industry was developing inoughout the whole country, port huron, they would cut it out of the black river and lake in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Just in our area, in the port huron area, for many years, there were 40 Ice Companies in our area. Companies would thrive and be very competitive against each other. Some of the companies would be smaller, maybe just a part time guy dragging ice out of the river behind its home. And becomeery Large Industrial companies which would have many employees and it was a very hard industry and cold. Employees it have to be big guys and tough to stand the elements. Were thate dangers the horses that hold the plows and could actually fall through into the water. Not only the horses, but the men. This is very dangerous and on occasion, people would drown. When they were storing the ice in big storage facilities, they would cut it into a 300 pound intond cut it and go storage and at times, people were killed. My dad mentioned that when someone was killed in the ice company, they would take the afternoon off for that fidelity. Would be pulled by a horse and the operator would stand back and guide the plow. He would pull the plow and it would not cut all the way through the ice. Depending on how thick the ice was coming that would depend on how far they wanted it to go down. Occasion, if they got too far down, the horse would actually fall through the ice. They would feed the horse oatmeal so that the horse would float better and they could get it out of the lake or river. Mid1800y was from the through the early 1900s. Ice to keepeeded their meat and food cold. The peoplet only be who worked on the lakes and rivers to cut the ice, but it would be that people who would the distribution so that they could distribute the ice to all the homes. Was a very laborintensive industry and employed an awful lot of people. Home changedn your things because you could keep milk much longer. The howthey would melt milk thewould be cow and that would be it. With the ice box, they could put the milk in the ice box and keep it for a day or two days or more. Goodis a good example of a quality, probably expensive icebox of the day. This is larger than the other icebox around here and it is very well made. This is the area where they would with the ice and would probably easily hold 50 pounds of ice. A lot of them would only hold 25 pounds. But this one will hold quite a bit of ice. This is at the top because the the loweroes down to area here where they would keep the food. These were very quality and clean at the time. Inhave several ice wagons our museum, but this is the oldest one. This was used in the late 1800s and is a small ice wagon. It almost looks like a it was used for ice delivery and would take blocks of ice and the driver would take the blocks of ice into the housewife and put it in the box. This is a scale to weigh the ice so he would know how much he took into the house and would put the ice on the scale and see how much it weighed before it came in. Card. S an ice whichever amount of ice, it would put that on and she would tell him she wanted 25 pounds of ice. That way, the driver would not have to make two trips into the house. The natural ice industry has always been interesting because natural ice was ice that was cut out of the rivers and lakes. When they started to produce ice with mechanical refrigeration, they called it artificial ice and it seems funny to me because frozenice whether its by nature or by man, a piece of ice seems to be a piece of ice, but not in their eyes. Thought thes really onslaught of companies that were going to make ice with mechanical refrigeration and some of the advertisements i have seen in our museum and my dad has collected our they really show the natural ice industry really tried to ward off the mechanical ice industry from coming on the scene. They really fought it off. In the end, mechanical refrigeration one out. Into home refrigerations that would be used in gigantic ice plants that would be used to make egg blocks of ice and they would pump it out by the hundreds of tons a day. We started in the early 1900s scene in thehe night scene 20s and 30s. By the time we got to world war ii, home refrigerators were on the incline. After world war ii, they took over. The ice industry, delivering homes to an icebox was almost dead. It still continued a little bit andpeople in the country people who use ice in the reason areas, the real for a museum being here was to educate the public on an industry gone by. So many kids today, if you think howt it, they have no idea tough life was. They did not have the conveniences they have today and if they come in today, they can see how tough the ice industry they couldnt just go to the refrigerator and get all the things they cant today. Ice was the pioneer in making that happen and was the start of people having the foods they want when they want. Weekend,ekend, every American History tv is featuring port huron. Cspan visited many sites showcasing the citys history. Port huron was incorporated in 1857 and is located about 30 miles east of detroit. Alln about port huron weekend here on American History tv. Were just north of port huron, it is a state park and back in june of 1962, this was the United Auto Workers and Union Workers would come up here and spend time with their family. This part at one time was the site of the Founding Convention for the students for a democratic society. Write what hasto become known as the port huron statement. Formed in ann and they wanted to bring about a more democratic society. They figured they needed a manifesto to bring that about. Write theirre to manifesto. This was a Student Group and they wanted to build a more democratic society. They looked at the problems of the United States and said these come about because of a lack of democracy. To fix them, we need more. Working fromether an original draft by tom hayden and broken up into pieces and gave them two groups of five or 10 people and they each worked on their sections for four were five days. Whatayden wrote a draft of he came the port huron statement. Groupivided up and each worked on a particular section. They came together and vote on the final piece and it went forward. They looked around america and saw the problem of racism and poverty and political apathy. Way toought the best address those problems were to get students involved. They thought specifically that College Students should be change agents. Universities are distributed across the country and those students have intellectual skills and time to work on problems and bring back a more democratic society. Their influence during the time from 1962 into the 70s was quite. The port huron statement is a catalog for the student movement. It really got the ball rolling in the sense that College Students felt that they belonged and that they mattered and they could make a change in society. But it wasnt just the port huron statement. It was a lot of the work they did afterward. They would send people to College Campuses to bring in members and they grew until the andentious split in 1968 1969 to about a million members. It was a big movement done through hard work and people talking to other people. What isted to introduce called a new left. They didnt have this completely thought out system. They advocated for what they called participatory democracy. You makeght if democracy available to everybody and everybody has a say in the decisions that affect their lives, you could bring about a better society. What that society would look like, we dont know. They are explicit to not give us that end goal. They simply say we think all human beings have undeveloped capacity for reason, freedom and love. Is to set up society to foster those capacities. I think what is here is interesting just to look at the first sentence. We are people of this generation, bread in modest comfort, housed in universities, looking to the world we inherit. They areentence, announcing a lot of things, saying we are university students, but we are worried about the future. Lets look at the world we are about to inherit. Completeot give out a political philosophy. It looks at stomach racism, the cold war and political apathy among the people, not to mention widespread poverty. Theseain, they thought social problems came about because of a lack of democracy. There were about 60 students. I cant get closer than that. About the students. They came here because it had the infrastructure. Right now, there is this wonderful, lovely park. There was a it fractured in 1968 and 1969 when a group of spf members went to a more revolutionary left. They wanted to be more of a reformist and it fractured and it was all over. There was almost a million members before they broke up. Campuses everywhere had chapters. To it became very integral the peace movement, the Antiwar Movement and the general 60s 1960 student movement. It was hard to break them apart. They became one and the same. One thing to be more inclusive, bring people together and have more democracy, not less. Of course, there is another group of people that say, if this radical, hippie document, they are a bunch of degenerates that wrote it, that sort of thing. Read it and decide for yourself. What i would like people to understand about the port huron is that we havent achieved our country yet. We are not there. And we need to do more. Each one of us. And that democracy can open u the society for us. And that the political life is the way to bring us together. We can talk to each other. We can Work Together to solve shared problems. And make this a more just and democratic society. The poor huron statement ands in this sort of ominously haunting sentence. It says, if we appear to seek the unattainable as it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable. Is the the unimaginable cold war, nuclear war, lack of ofocracy, the continuation the rampant racism in america at the time. And that scared them and that moved them to organize. Announcer we travel to poor huron, michigan to the war, it served as an important terminus to the underground railroad. Learn more all weekend here on American History tv. By. Tanding waiting. Ok, weve got radio. Weve got radar. Weve got gps. Was in show this ship operation 70 something years. That is probably one of the best returns the american taxpayers got. It is because the ship was ideally designed for what it was supposed to do. It did that job. And its because im not blowing smoke that is a military term its because they had all these wonderful people that were qualified, wanted to be here and took care of this vessel and were very proud of it. 180 feetip itself is long and it is one of 39 that were built. They were built in a rush in world war ii. The ship is 37 feet wide. It weighs, when it is fully dressed, approximately 1100 tons. It draws about 13 feet of water and it is built to crush ice and also deployed buoys. It is an icebreaker when you need it. This vessel goes back to 1944. The coast guard bought a bunch of these. Around,ld war ii came they started building them like crazy. What good to understand was done, how it was done, and what this particular ship did. An atomic bomb test out in the pacific. It made the northwest passage. Government 71the years. One of the very extreme the appointments that this ship made was at the end of world war ii. It was in san diego and honolulu. At the end of the war, in 1940 six, the government wanted to continue to test atomic weapons. So this ship, the bramble was employed to set was the floyd toset buoys was deployed set to buoys. Was for the actual test. The bombs were blown off into different locations. Above the0 feet water. So it was an aerial test. Effectsy looked at the it had, radiationwise, and that werethe ships there. There were 192 ships that were in that test. So the bramble was a very busy ship. It did a lot of work. That was 1946 july. A second extraordinary thing thatthe bramble did was two other ships in 1957 left and they circumnavigated, in other words, it went to the north pole. They broke ice. They set buoys, and they opened a commercial route so that we could get east coast, west coast, and west coasteast coast, instead of going through the panama canal. They could go through the north pole. They had to deal with 20 feet of ice. They had to deal with very cold temperatures. Of the three ships that made the passage, its called the northwest passage, the stores and spar shrunk. Sunk. They are no longer existing. Bramble is the last of those three. Going to write 20. I was Commanding Officer from 1978 to 1980. We we responsible for obviously safe operations. Buoys andall the worked on some lighthouses from alpena, michigan all the way down to almost toledo, ohio. When the winter months came along, we were tasked with icebreaking, keeping the shipping channels open as long as we could. For the ford boats. Supported an ancient Navigation System that allowed commerce to work in a Great Lengths great lakes as long as we possibly could. All of the commerce in the great lakes were depending on the navigation, the ability to navigate in those waters in the winter months and in the summertime, too. It is a very demanding job. You break up the day into 12our sections. The bad thing on the crew, as the ship is breaking ice, it is a very, very noisy. You can imagine the ship is designed to write up on the ice. It makes a lot of noise on the whole the hull. The crew is not getting good rest. They are not getting good sleep. It is dangerous to work around the big ships. So you call the lakers and say im going to go through the ice until daylight. I will see you at six akaka the morning when the sun comes up and start breaking ice again and get you to alpena or wherever youd are taking them into. Here we are in at birth thing. Basically, the ship is to is split into two main berthing areas. Theres one aft and one forward. What happened with the original crew, which we had in the 1950s and 1960s, they had up to 57 crew members, which at that point, you had three in a rack. You can see headallies, you did not want to sit up too fast if you were in these racks. , as we wantedn more comfort in the 1970s and the 1980s, the three stack, which is very, very tight, we went and we only had to any stack. Two in a stack. So you had headroom galore. Hadou wanted to get up, you the room tonight get a head knocker. , absolutelyy well taken aback. We had a next crewmember that served on the bramble as the doc. , which is the medic in charge of keeping everybody healthy and alive. Away withlutely blown what the doc had. He was from huntsville, alabama. He said robert, we are going to put sick bay of when i was aboard ship. I mean, he has it up to the point of a level 4 trauma center. And hes got everything that will keep you alive for at least two hours until you can get to a level 2 flown or a level 1 center. One of the things that makes the ship so durable is it is round and very curvy and its got a big stainless steel propeller on it which doesnt break like a bronze one would. We are down in the main engine room of the bramble. Is two are looking at main engines, big electromotive the souls. They are engines that are going to be on trains. And they drive an electric generator and is a parallel and they go into this power board here. Iss whole Technology Actually technology that is going to be the most reliable. That is because we are breaking ice. When you break ice, you are going to be looking at shock loads like that. Hitting ice. If you hook up these engines directly with a propeller, you would snap the shaft. So what weve got here . You got an engine driving a generator. The generator drives an electric motor. And the electric motor drives the propeller. So this whole technology is still in use. It is about as good as you are going to get. You are going to get reliability you are going to get as minimal amount of damage as you can to this ships propulsion system make as youve got all these electric motors and generators that are like shock absorbers. They are taking up fast jolts but they are putting a lot of shaft power out there. They pushed through the eyes, rise up on the eyes, then let the whole drop down and break bowele away let the drop down and break the ice away. We are in the boardroom where the officers meet. Pieces of most proud the ship, what we consider the heart and soul of the ship, which is the ships bell. It is the original bell cast. On the forepart of the helm, the bill was right out in front for all to see. What we want to do is marry back the soul of the ship, even though we are not any longer in service. We are a ship that is not registered. It is not property anymore of the u. S. Government. We want to marry the u. S. Government bell, which they keep forever, we want to marry that bell back to the ship. The curator was very gracious to give us a contract so that we could keep the ships bell and keep all those proceeds and crewmembers, retired and present , current with the heart of the ship. Is good for people to come see this place, understand how they lived and how they work. That should not be lost. Because that is a part of the fabric of the history in this country. That shouldnt be lost. That is why the museum is important and should stay as long as it can here. Its a time capsule. Its American History. It started under a war making has and its to do a day job and it continues a job. As part of history, it is a lesson. Our hope is to get it to the point where we can bring up the youngsters behind us and have one that doesnt have a path to choose a path, to be a captain, a mechanic, a sailmaker, learn about what happens, you know, when you pull together exactly what you can do. Announcer this weekend, we are featuring for huron, michigan. Cspan. Org cities tour. Watching American History tv, all we weekend every weekend on cspan 3 area announcer