I never rode the Boblo boats as a kid. But after reading the comments on our Boblo videos, I started to understand how much that trip meant to the people who did.

You remembered the ride down the river. Who took you. What it felt like to be on the boat before you even reached the island. Details that would never fit on a historical marker, but that explain why a place still matters long after it closes.

When I boarded the Ste. Claire this September, I brought those stories with me. My experience was new. The memories that helped me understand it belonged to you.

That exchange is a big part of why I keep doing this. I can research a building, walk through it and make a film. Then someone who knew it in another life tells me something I could not have learned just by standing there.

Today, Stories We Keep becomes a daily Michigan history blog—a place to give those stories more room, and somewhere to find them again.

A New Daily Chapter for History Loves Company

Today begins a new iteration of Stories We Keep, the written archive of History Loves Company.

Every day, we will publish a story about a place, person, building, decision, industry or memory that helped shape Michigan. Some stories will be familiar. Others will lead us into neighborhoods, factories, houses, parks and communities that rarely receive the attention they deserve.

We will begin with Detroit, Pontiac and the places closest to the History Loves Company story. From there, we will travel across Michigan—from the industrial cities of Southeast Michigan to the lumber towns, mining communities, Great Lakes ports, historic neighborhoods and small downtowns spread across both peninsulas.

Some days we will spend time with one building. Other days we will follow a bigger question through a whole city. Knowing when something was built is a start. Understanding why it mattered takes a little longer.

Why was this place built? Who built it? Who was allowed inside? Who was left out? What happened here? Why did the neighborhood change? What survived? What disappeared? And who decided which parts of the story were worth remembering?

Start with the bigger story. Our first They Lied to Us episode asks what really destroyed Detroit—and why one event cannot explain a city's transformation. Watch on YouTube.

Why Begin in Michigan?

Michigan contains enough history to help explain much of modern America.

The growth of mass production can be traced through factories in Detroit, Highland Park, Dearborn, Flint and Pontiac. The rise of organized labor can be followed through assembly lines, union halls and confrontations between workers and corporations.

The development of the American middle class is visible in our houses and neighborhoods. So are redlining, racial covenants, urban renewal, freeway construction and the policies that helped wealth move outward while many city neighborhoods were denied investment.

Michigan gave the world Motown. Its copper, iron and lumber helped build an industrial nation. Its Great Lakes carried people, resources and finished goods. Its resort towns, amusement parks, theaters, department stores and neighborhood gathering places became the settings for millions of personal memories.

And long before Michigan became a state, these lands and waters were—and remain—the homelands of Indigenous peoples whose history cannot be treated as a short introduction to someone else’s story.

Michigan history is national history. In many cases, it is world history. We simply need to look closely enough to recognize the connections.

This Is Not Nostalgia for Its Own Sake

Remembering the past does not mean pretending it was perfect.

Old photographs can make a lost downtown look beautiful. A former amusement park can bring back the happiest days of someone’s childhood. A historic mansion can show us craftsmanship that would be almost impossible to reproduce today.

But a complete story must make room for more than beauty.

The same city that created incredible wealth could also enforce segregation. The same factory that offered a family economic stability could demand exhausting and dangerous labor. The same freeway that made a suburban commute possible could destroy a city neighborhood in its path.

We can love a place and still tell the truth about it.

That means checking the records, listening to different experiences and being clear when a memory is something we have not yet been able to verify. A story does not become less interesting because we admit there is more to learn.

Stories We Keep will celebrate what deserves to be celebrated, question the versions of history that became too convenient, and acknowledge the people whose experiences were excluded from the official narrative.

One Story, Many Ways to Experience It

The new Stories We Keep blog will connect the entire History Loves Company world.

Our films will lead to deeper written research. Blog articles will help viewers continue exploring after an episode ends. Neighborhood stories will connect to architecture and historic real estate. Community memories will help us find places that official archives missed.

The Foundry in downtown Pontiac will give many of these stories a physical home through exhibits, events, Michigan-made goods, conversations and community history projects.

The blog is where all of those pieces can meet—and where they can remain searchable long after a social media post disappears from someone’s feed.

Come see where this is growing. The Foundry brings makers, small businesses and community storytelling together at 35 W Huron Street in downtown Pontiac. Watch the Foundry film or plan a visit.

Beginning Here, Then Expanding Intentionally

History Loves Company will not always stop at the Michigan border.

Michigan’s stories naturally lead outward. Our industries connected us to workers, resources and markets around the world. The Great Lakes connect Michigan with neighboring states and Canada. The housing, transportation and preservation decisions made here resemble choices made in cities across America.

Eventually, Stories We Keep will follow those connections across the country and around the world.

But that expansion will be intentional.

First, Michigan. Then the Great Lakes and the communities connected to us by water, industry and migration. From there, we will follow those connections across America and eventually overseas. A story about a Michigan factory might lead us to the town its workers came from or the city where its next plant opened.

Every step outward should give readers a reason to follow. Michigan will remain home, even when the stories take us farther away.

Your Memories Belong in This Story

The most important historical records do not always live inside major institutions.

Sometimes they are stored in a box of family photographs. Sometimes they are sitting on a shelf in the back of a local business. Sometimes they survive only because one person still remembers what used to stand on a particular corner.

If there is a house, street, business, factory, school, neighborhood or Michigan place you believe should be remembered, share your story with History Loves Company.

Your memory may lead us to the next article, film, interview or community project. It may also preserve a detail that would otherwise disappear.

History does not belong only to historians.

It belongs to everyone willing to look closely, ask better questions and remember together.

Every home has a story. Every city carries memory.