Governor Whitmer on Michigan Supreme Court Expanding Civil Rights to LGBTQ+ Michiganders for First Time in State History michigan.gov - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from michigan.gov Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Clerk set fire to Lewis Cass Building, destroying thousands of records, this week in 1951
Updated Feb 10, 2021;
Facebook Share
LANSING, MI – Michigan’s Lewis Cass building made headlines last summer when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer renamed it the Elliott-Larsen building.
But this week 70 years ago, Michigan’s oldest standing state office building was in the news for something else entirely: a massive fire lit by a state employee who hoped it would help him avoid the Korean War.
It was lunchtime on Feb. 8, 1951 when firefighters from five different cities began pumping an eventual five million gallons of water through 19,100 feet of hose to try and quell the roaring blaze, which was set in the “M” (presumably for mezzanine) and seventh floors of the building.