Grand Ledge Holiday Traditions Tour

After decorating our own modest home for the holidays, my husband and I ventured westward to Grand Ledge on Sunday for the annual holiday traditions home tour. The tour, sponsored by the Grand Ledge Area Historical Society, featured exhibits in the Grand Ledge Opera House and the Museum as well as tours of private homes and business decorated for the season.

The day was unseasonably balmy, so it turned out to be a great day for walking around downtown Grand Ledge, in and out of buildings. Highlights of the tour included the 1880s pharmacy, now home to Seven Island Mercantile, and the home of Gina Tamburino, a 1902 Queen Anne built by D.D. Shane, a prominent jeweler, opthamologist, and later mayor of Grand Ledge. Shane's home featured murals of the "seven islands" of Grand Ledge painted on burlap around the upstairs landing.

With no single narrative ark, the Grand Ledge historical holiday walking tour gives an impressionistic view of Grand Ledge prosperity, from its days as a resort town and furniture manufacturer, to its present as home to insurance executives and other prominent citizens of central Michigan. The ultimate sense is of a town proud of its age and depth of tradition, firmly rooted in its locality. Check out this article in the Lansing State Journal for more detail.

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