Michigan

"Michigan seems like a dream to me now" - Paul Simon

The Yorkshire Pudding Spotlight of Curiosity falls today upon a rather ordinary little town in Lapeer County, Michigan, USA. It's North Branch  which has grown slowly since it was first settled in 1856. It now has a population of 1096.

Two years ago, it was visited by a YouTube contributor called Daryl Turcott. He mostly focused on the town's Orr Historical Museum and this was the six minute video he produced:-

By the way, I deduce that the little town's unusual name is derived from the fact that it stands on the north branch of The Flint River. For a while in the second half of the nineteenth century, it was known as Beachville  after Mr. and Mrs. Richard Beach who were two of the very first settlers.  I guess that Mr. and Mrs. George Simmons  - the other first settlers - may have objected.

I took a look around North Branch myself with the help of Google Streetview. It seemed a sleepy kind of place. Not much was happening and there was hardly anybody around - not much traffic either. But superficially at least, it appeared quite tidy and relatively affluent.

Above - Huron Street, North Branch - the centre of the town and below two businesses on Huron Street

North Branch Bar & Grill

The Open Door Hair Salon

Above - a small home on Saginaw Street and below a larger home on Spring Street

Below - when the Google Streetview car cruised around North Branch in August of this year there were plenty of banners hanging in the downtown area in praise of local men and women who served in the US military - including Jeffrey Swain:-

So, you might be asking, why North Branch? The town is set in productive farming country and one of those farms was the childhood home of David Godfrey who is the blogger behind "The Adventures of a Travel Penguin" which comes to us these days from Washington D.C.. But just like the rest of us, David can never forget where he came from...

David

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