In honor of Black History Month, I want to introduce a unique story in Michigan History to my listeners, the story of Frank W. May, a man who was born into enslavement in Kentucky prior to the American Civil War, and after emancipation raised himself to the ownership of a sawmill in Detroit and a lumberman owning a modest logging operation in Otsego County in the Northern Lower Peninsula in the 1890s.

In 2017 I had an article about Frank May published in Chronicle, the membership magazine of the Historical Society of Michigan, title "Frank W. May's Spirit of Enterprise." It was based on research that I conducted in 2016 mostly through the Detroit Public Library's Burton Historical Collections. I don't quite remember how I came across Frank May and his connection to the Michigan lumber industry, but I knew that it was a story that needed to be shared with a wider audience. In this episode I am casting that net further and I go back to that article and sharing it with the listeners of the podcast.

The article that I wrote:

Burg, Rob. "Frank W. May's Spirit of Enterprise." Chronicle, Membership Magazine of the Historical Society of Michigan, Lansing, Michigan. Vol. 40, No. 2. pp. 20-22. hsmichigan.org

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