Michigan Stoves - Mammoth Garland 1893 World's Fair Exhibit

 

I have this and other 1880s trade cards and clips available in a great scrapbook that 

I just listed in my ebay store. 

The listing is for an Antique Ephemera Scrapbook Album Marked 1896 inside.

There is a postcard inside that is an 1889 calendar!

Michigan Stoves actually built this giant stove for the 1893 World Fair!

From www.historicdetroit.org:

As part of the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, Michigan Stove commissioned William J. Kemp to design a giant wooden replica of a Garland stove. And giant is no understatement: The stove weighed 15 tons and measured 25 feet high, 30 feet long and 20 feet wide. The wood carvings were done by John Tabaczuk.

After the exposition's closure, the stove was sent back to Detroit.

Michigan Stove and Detroit Stove merged on Dec. 1, 1927, and the giant stove was moved to 6000 E. Jefferson, just west of the Douglas MacArthur Bridge to Belle Isle, where it remained until 1965. It was then trucked up to the Michigan State Fairgrounds, a crew lifting traffic lights and utility lines out of the way. The Detroit-Michigan Stove Co. had been bought out by the Welbit Co. in 1955.

But as the stove passed 80 years of age, the wooden structure was starting to decay. It was disassembled in 1974 and placed into storage, where it sat for nearly a quarter of a century. Then, to mark the 150th anniversary of the Michigan State Fair, local business, community and union leaders came together to restore the stove. It was rededicated on a grassy knoll at the Fairgrounds on Aug. 24, 1998.

In 2009, citing budget restraints, the Michigan State Fair was closed, cutting visitors off to the stove.

On Aug. 13, 2011, the giant stove was destroyed by fire, the apparent victim of a lightning strike.