[A big thanks to Ira Weintraub down at WTKA 1050AM for passing these pictures along, who in turn got them from longtime WTKA caller ‘High Octane Mike’.]
Back in 1927, a gent named Harold Sherman lived in the Ann Arbor area and did something special. He wandered to the Michigan Stadium construction site and snapped these shots. They were passed along to his son Pete, who was kind enough to share.
I’m thinking they date to the late spring timeframe, 1927, a few perhaps later on. Why? Well, it appears as though we’ve got some cement work going on here and Yost solicited bids for the concrete work in March 1927 and started pouring shortly thereafter.
Enjoy:
Don’t see a steam shovel or crane buried? From my interview with Dr. Robert Soderstrom, author of The Big House:
MVictors: One of the greatest tales of Michigan Stadium involves a crane or steam shovel being buried beneath the stadium, lost in all that water and sand during the build. But you didn’t find any evidence of this in your research?
Soderstrom: [laughs] I was unable to confirm that and I’ve heard that story since I arrived in Ann Arbor way back in 1968. I could not find anything in the current literature, either in the Ann Arbor News or the Michigan Daily or anything. I can’t imagine that wouldn’t have been recorded by somebody if in fact they had lost a whole steam shovel.
The [excavator] lost everything else. I also asked his granddaughter and she said she never heard that story from her grandfather.
8 Comments
616goblue
AWESOME find! Thanks for sharing! Two weeks until I'm in my season seats in Section 16!!!!!
W Wilson
Outstanding photos! You can see Yost Fieldhouse over in the background on one of them. These are great.
Jason W
Great Pics! They make it easy to see why the noise escapes out of the stadium.
gobluetwo
Glad you quoted that bit about the steam shovel – I was wondering that very thing as I was looking at the pictures!
Peter R. Sherman
these pictures were taken by my father, Harold Sherman, and I am so glad that H.O. Mike was able to get them to the right persons. Please enjoy!
chief
Neat pictures, Pete.
Chief
Greg from MVictors
Pete, thanks for lending these – many, many hits on this page since I posted. We\’ll have the originals back to you soon.
Anonymous
great picTures My grandparents on my fathers side lived where the Stadium sets now.