07/25/2007

Colonial Michilimackinac Opens for Mackinac Bridge Fireworks July 28

Bonfire, traditional 18th and 19th century children’s games and music

Mackinaw City, Mich. – As a special treat for viewers of the Mackinac Bridge 50th Anniversary fireworks display on Saturday, July 28, Mackinac State Historic Parks will open the grounds of Colonial Michilimackinac from 9 p.m. until the end of the fireworks at approximately 11 p.m.  The historic site is located at the southern tip of the Mackinac Bridge in Mackinaw City, and will provide one of the only beachfront views of the fireworks display.

While waiting for the fireworks to begin, guests outside the fort and fur-trading village guests will enjoy a bonfire and a program of traditional 18th and 19th century children’s games and music played by historic interpreters in costume. Admission is $3 per person, $10 for immediate families (one or two adults and their children/grandchildren under 18).  The event is free to all Mackinac Associates members.

Fireworks will be launched from the Lake Huron beach in front of the Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse to heights of 1,500 feet or more.  “For safety reasons, the Mackinac Bridge Authority is closing the east side of Michilimackinac State Park, which eliminates much of the prime beach-front viewing area for the fireworks,” said Gregory Hokans, Chief of Marketing and Development for Mackinac State Historic Parks. “Although the fort will be closed, we’re staffing and opening grounds of Colonial Michilimackinac so visitors will still have a beach-front view of the display, from a National Historic Landmark. The traditional music, bonfire and children’s games will make the evening even more memorable.”
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Guests may enter the Colonial Michilimackinac grounds beginning at 9:00 p.m. through either the Colonial Michilimackinac Visitor’s Center located directly under the Mackinac Bridge’s south ramp or  its’ group gate just outside the wooden palisades of the fort at the western end of Straits Avenue across from the Fort Fudge Shop.

Mackinac State Historic Parks is a family of living history museums and nature parks in northern Michigan’s Straits of Mackinac and is an agency within the Michigan Department of History, Arts and Libraries. Its sites — which are accredited by the American Association of Museums—include Fort Mackinac, Mackinac Island State Park, and Historic Downtown on Mackinac Island, and Colonial Michilimackinac, Historic Mill Creek, and Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse in Mackinaw City.