Michigan has some very cool old stuff



When we set out to look for a handful of Michigan's oldest things, we got a reminder that time is relative.

The oldest jazz club, Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit, is a mere 82 years old. The oldest person in the state — and, coincidentally, the world — is an Inkster woman who is 115 and counting.

And then there are Michigan's oldest trees, which are past 500 years old, and its oldest fossils, which are past 2 billion.

We've narrowed a list down to these seven items.

Oldest fossils: Look to the iron range

The pattern in the rock looks like somebody put their very tiny drink down repeatedly and left rings on the coffee table.

But the irregular, broken circles really are evidence of Michigan's oldest fossils, which are an estimated 1.8 to 2.1 billion years old.

Found in the Negaunee Iron Formation near Palmer in the Upper Peninsula, the fossils are the oldest in the world that can be seen with the naked eye. The shapes are formed by a primitive, filament-like relative of algae.

The fossil's technical name is Grypania cf. spiralis and the shapes are generally about the size of a penny.

Michigan has plenty of other fossils, too, including a state favorite, the Petoskey stone, which is fossilized coral. But at an estimated 358 million to 419 million years old, the Petoskey stone is only a quarter the age of the U.P. find.

Oldest jazz club: It's in Detroit

Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit bills itself as "the world's oldest jazz club."

And it might be. The the Village Vanguard in New York City also makes that claim. But even if it isn't the world's oldest, it is Michigan's.

Chris and Fannie Baker opened a lunchtime sandwich shop in 1933, and their son, Clarence, started booking jazz acts in 1934. By 1939, Clarence had taken over the shop and started booking pianists from outside the Detroit area. Baker's was remodeled to its current art deco look in the 1950s with a piano-shaped bar, tilted mirrors that allow patrons to view the pianist's hands, and its Steinway piano. Baker's was designated in 1986 as an Historic Site by the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office.

Musicians who have played there include Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, George Shearing, Sarah Vaughn, Joe Williams, Maynard Ferguson, Cab Calloway, Woody Herman, Modern Jazz Quartet, and Nat "King" Cole.

Oldest living person: Jeralean Talley

At 115 and counting, Jeralean Talley of Inkster is being hailed as not only the oldest person in Michigan, but in the world.

Friends and family say Talley is still mentally sharp, though she is hard of hearing and uses a walker to help her get around.

Talley will turn 116 on May 23. Asked for the key to her longevity, she gave the answer she has given before:

"It's coming from above. That's the best advice I can give you. It's not in my hands or your hands," she said, pointing vigorously skyward with both index fingers, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Talley, born in 1899 in Georgia, came to Michigan in 1935. She bowled until she was 104 and still mowed her lawn until a few years ago.

Oldest living organisim: Fungus in the U.P.

Michigan's oldest living thing abides in the forest near the U.P. city of Crystal Falls: The Armillaria gallica colony — a wood fungus — covers 37 acres or so of subterranean and forest-floor space and is known to locals as the "humongous fungus."

The size of the fungus isn't all that's remarkable. It also is at least 1,500 years old, but perhaps as old as 10,000 years.

The fungus, which can be tracked by its above-ground "fruiting bodies" (a.k.a. "mushrooms") was discovered by researchers who were looking for something else. (They were studying the effect of extra-low-frequency radio waves used by Navy communication stations on organisms living nearby.) A research paper about its existence published in 1992 caused a worldwide stir. These days, Crystal Falls celebrates the fungus with an annual festival. This year's is scheduled Aug. 7 and 8.

Oldest buildings: Mackinac Island has them

Michigan's oldest dated buildings both are on Mackinac Island and date to 1780, when British soldiers, busy in the east with the Revolutionary War, decided to move their fort from Mackinaw City to the more-defensible Mackinac Island.

That makes the 235-year-old Officers' Stone Quarters at Fort Mackinac the oldest public building in the state, said Kelsey Schnell, spokesman for Mackinac State Historic Parks.

The oldest private building is the nearby McGulpin House, which dates to 1780 or earlier. Far less grand than the beautifully painted Victorian homes that are icons of the island, it's an unassuming white rectangle with a distinctive, steep dark roof. It's open to visitors during the summer, with its partially-restored interior designed to show layers of architectural history. The Biddle House, which features a steep roof and front dormers, also dates to approximately 1780.

Schnell reminds Michiganders that 2015 marks the 300th anniversary of Colonial Michilimackinac, in Mackinaw City. The fort's buildings are all reconstructed in 1715 style. A newly rebuilt rowhouse contains an original fireplace, protected for decades by sand or other structures.

Oldest congregation: St. Anne de Detroit

The soaring vaulted ceiling of the gothic-revival St. Anne de Detroit Catholic church only dates to 1887.

But it's the people, not the building, that make St. Anne's special. The church congregation was founded and has continuously worshiped — mostly in progressively larger buildings — since July of 1701, when French settlers began the construction of Fort Pontchartrain.

There have been some gaps in the church buildings' history. The first church burned in 1703, including all church records; that's why the registry of baptisms, marriages and deaths goes only back to 1704. A replacement church burned in1714 and the building wasn't replaced until 1755; St. Anne went through another fire and a few more buildings until the 1887 gothic revival structure was built.

One of the church's parish priests was the Rev. Gabriel Richard, who was co-founder of the Catholepistemiad of Michigania, which later became the University of Michigan. He also was a territorial representative in the U.S. Congress.

Oldest trees: Cedars on South Manitou Island

We asked a few tree experts in the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to help us figure out if Michigan has a majestic tree somewhere that bears the title "oldest."

The short answer is no, but getting there is an interesting journey. Follow along:

"Since different tree species grow at different rates, you cannot simply assume that the largest tree is the oldest tree," said David Price of the DNR's Forest Resources Division.

For example, the biggest tree in Michigan is a black willow in Grand Traverse County, but willows grow fast.

Instead, you have to consider the species. Northern white cedar, white and red oak, eastern hemlock, white and red pine, sugar maple and yellow birch are among the longest-lived species in the state, and therefore more likely to have a centuries-old specimen. For example, the towering old-growth white pines at Hartwick Pines are estimated at 300years old or more.

Price recalled a white cedar tree on South Manitou Island within the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakesure that was said to be 1,000 years old.

His DNR colleague Kevin Sayers reports that tree has died. However, the stand of old-growth cedars it was in — with some estimated to be 500 years and older — could yield a new candidate for oldest tree.

Lee Frelich and Ernie Otsuno measured some of the cedars on a 2007 field trip for the Native Tree Society, and found a living, 67.5-foot tree with a 149-inch girth, a 78-foot tree with a 136-inch girth and several others that were slightly smaller, any of which could be 500 or more years old.

Without other evidence to the contrary, we're giving "oldest tree" to the South Manitou Island cedar grove — for now.