Croton Dam | A hydroelectric engineering marvel on the Muskegon River near Newaygo

When Croton Dam on the Muskegon River just east of Newaygo was constructed in 1907, it was a state-of-the-art facility, built for the purpose of sending electricity to Grand Rapids. The 100,000-volt high voltage line that carried electricity 50 miles to Grand Rapids was the highest-voltage transmission line in the world at the time.

Construction of the dam swallowed up one-third of the village of Croton, creating Croton Dam Pond in the process. The dam works in tandem with Hardy Dam, located in nearby Big Prairie Twp. and built in the 1920s, and Rogers Dam, built a year before Croton and located further upriver near Big Rapids.

Here are a few fast facts to remember as you watch water spill alongside the enormous 60-foot-high red-brick structures:

·         Croton Dam impounds 7.2 billion gallons water

·         Its reservoir stretches 1,209 acres

·         The dam generates about 44 million kW hours of electricity annually

·         About 3,000 timber pilings support the dam’s concrete foundation

McCourtie Park | Find concrete-wood works of art and more in Somerset Center

Aiden Lair is the long-ago name of an estate on US-12 in Hillsdale County.

El Trabajo Rustico is the Mexican folk tradition of sculpting concrete to look like wood.

Rathskeller is a German word referring to a basement-level bar or tavern.

W.H.L. McCourtie was a Michigan cement tycoon who, in the 1930s, hired George Cardosa and Ralph Corona, two Mexican “el trabaja rustico” artisans, who spent the next 10 years sculpting 17 bridges over a creek at Aiden Lair, as well as other works scattered around the 42-acre property, including two columns that look like enormous tree trunks and served as chimneys for an underground rathskeller, in which McCourtie hosted famous Great Gatsby-esque parties attended by the likes of Al Capone during his Chicago-to-Detroit travels.  

McCourtie Park is what remains of Aiden Lair, including all 17 bridges, the two enormous trees, and a park unlike anything else you’re likely to stumble across, in Michigan or anywhere else.

Fowling Warehouse | Bar games reach intense new heights in Hamtramck

Maybe they used to make car parts here, in this warehouse, on this pothole-littered road that cuts to the heart of Hamtramck, where workers have been sweating while churning out cars and car parts and countless other things for decades. Hard to guess what this particular space produced, but these days, the sweat spawns from a more recreational pursuit.

The original Fowling Warehouse occupies what appears was a long-vacated industrial space. A genius idea, when you get down to it, one that hatched when a handful of beer drinkers were tailgating at the 2001 Indy 500. Whatever football-lobbing game they were playing eventually evolved into Fowling – a game where players throw a football at a rack of bowling pins. The great drinking games stem from the simplest concepts.

Here was the formula: Football + Bowling + Bar = Fowling Warehouse

The warehouse in Hamtramck opened for play in 2014. Since then, Fowling Warehouse has expanded to locations in Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids, as well as out-of-state venues in Indianapolis, Atlanta and Cincinnati. Hard to imagine any of them surpassing the sweet ambiance of Hamtramck, where an aging, hulking steel frame and concrete floor provide the shell. A couple dozen courts stretch side by side, leading to footballs and pins bouncing wildly. Players need to be on alert.

In between games, the bar serves up tons of beverages, including a nice selection of craft beers, IPAs, hard ciders and seltzers.  Players are invited to bring their own food. Show up and join open play for $12 or reserve a court for a group of any size for $120 for two hours. Just come ready to sweat, this ain’t Granddad’s bar game.

But it might be where he worked.