On Monday, tens of thousands of people will walk across the Mackinac Bridge as part of an annual Labor Day tradition.
Beneath their feet will be nearly 70-year-old metal that for the past few years has been slowly getting replaced and then sold off.
So, who ends up buying pieces of the Mackinac Bridge? And how far those pieces end up traveling around the globe?
Everybody seems to have some kind of story about the Mackinac Bridge.Kim Nowack
You may have an early childhood memory of crossing the Mackinac Bridge for a trip Up North or maybe you’re a transplant to the state who was wowed seeing the Mighty Mac for yourself for the first time
Everybody seems to have some kind of story about the Mackinac Bridge," said Kim Nowack, director of the Mackinac Bridge Authority.
"So, just getting a piece of it for themselves, whether it's large or small, is on a lot of people's list of things to do.
Nowack says when the MBA began replacing the decades-old grating that millions of people drive over every year, people would call asking if they could have it.
For a while, the authority would send those folks to a scrap yard, but that changed around 2018.
"We realized that there was a market for these pieces, and many people were interested in having them," she said.
The MBA now sells different sizes of grating from small pieces at its office to auctions of 40-foot-long cuts of metal.
Getting these pieces, every time you touch it and you work with it, it just reminds you of going to the UP and all those great memories.James Race
If you search websites like etsy, you’ll find many listings for jewelry, wall art and other metalwork all made from these pieces of the bridge.
One of those small businesses is Atomic Rabbit Ironwork based out of Charlotte which is owned by couple James and Megan Race.
"Getting these pieces, every time you touch it and you work with it, it just reminds you of going to the UP and all those great memories," James Race said.
In their home blacksmithing workshop, James heats up a pieces of the bridge in a red-hot forge, so it’s malleable enough for him to shape it into a bottle opener on his anvil.
The Races have shipped their creations, the bottle openers as well as keychains and necklace pendants to all 50 states and even internationally.
"With the people that we sell it to, the stories are so fun," he said.
Like a couple who used a piece as part of a cake topper for their wedding on Mackinac Island. Or a woman who buys one for her husband for every time he participates in the DALMAC bike tour.
DeWitt resident Jan Brintnall also bought a small piece of the bridge from the Races. It looks like a little cross, cut from where two pieces of metal met for the bridge grating, covered in different layers of paint from over the years.
In the 18th century, her ancestor came from France to the region to trade fur.
"My third great-grandfather traversed the straits in a voyageur canoe, Brintnall said. "I wanted a piece of that to remember him."
Just as people have come from across the globe to Michigan, the Mackinac Bridge has traveled to some of the most remote places on Earth including the South Pole.
While working a heavy equipment job in Antarctica, Indiana resident Brendan Fisher helped incorporate some medallions cut from a piece of the bridge into the ceremonial South Pole marker, a red and white striped poled topped with a shiny, reflective metal ball like a mirror.
"It's surrounded by 13 flags of different company countries that signed the Antarctic Treaty," he said.
"You can take a picture with the reflective ball of the marker, and you have the South Pole station as your backdrop.
Once you start making things out of history, you're kind of making double the story.Brendan Fisher
In a video a colleague took, the winds whips around Brendan and the flags as he fits the ball onto the pole. You can see his breath as his friend cheers him on.
"Once you start making things out of history, you're kind of making double the story."
Fisher’s Bridge medallions were also added to the 2024 geographical South Pole marker. That one gets replaced every year as the pole shifts.
"Now it's in a display case down there at the South Pole. When that display case gets too full, they ship, maybe 10 at a time, to the Smithsonian where it’ll live out life until the end of eternity," Fisher said.
The Mackinac Bridge may only span 5 miles, but with the help of some of its biggest fans, its reach is worldwide.
