Talk:Monroe, Michigan

ripping off text from other web sites
I reverted a number of recent edits that had inserted a large amount of text taken pretty much word for word from the city web site. First, the city web site is copyrighted. Second, taking such large pieces of text verbatim from other web sites withou any proper attribution is just wrong. There's no problem with re-writing and summarizing facts taken from other sources. And there may be portions of the recent addition that are not plagiarized. But I thought it more prudent to remove the entire addition to be sorted out later. older ≠ wiser 12:36, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I restored (maybe not in the best of ways) the section of prominent residents. It's not a very big town... but it had had a lot of famous people born there or who lived there and it is absolutely ridiculous not to have this section. Its absence makes no sense at all. Gingermint (talk) 04:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Notable residents

Bronco McKart (b. 1971), former World Boxing Organization champion Carl Ford (b. 1980), American football player Christie Brinkley (b. 1954), model who was born in Monroe Elizabeth Bacon Custer (1842–1933), wife of General Custer, was born in Monroe Elizabeth McWebb (1904–2004), author of the Little Brown Bear book series Ernest Ingersoll (1852–1946), environmentalist and naturalist George Armstrong Custer (1839–1876), Major General who lived much of his early life in Monroe George Spalding (1836–1915), former teacher and politician Henry Armstrong Reed (1858–1876), nephew of George Custer, lived in Monroe Isaac P. Christiancy (1812–1890), former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court J. Sterling Morton (1832–1902), prominent conservationist who lived in Monroe from 1834–1854 Kaye Lani Rae Rafko (b. 1963), native from Monroe who was the 1988 Miss America winner Mary Harris Jones (1837–1930), union organizer who moved to Monroe from Ireland Randy Richardville (b. 1959), current Michigan state senator, lives in Monroe Robert McCelland (1807–1880), prominent Michigan politician Ryan Sontag (b. 1985), current pitcher for the Boise Hawks minor league baseball team Vern Sneider (1916–1981), American novelist who lived in Monroe Vic Braden (b. 1929), former tennis champion and coach
 * Boston Custer (1848–1876), younger brother of George Custer, lived in Monroe

Little Brown Bear
http://historicmonroe.org/little-brown-bear/index.htm This is the link to a website I found that just talks about all sorts of stuff about the author of the Little Brown Bear books. The author, Elizabeth Upham McWebb lived in Monroe for some time. I just began reading about her, but I do know that at the Monroe County Fairgrounds is the house she lived in. I live in Monroe, you see. Anyway, that house used to be on my dad's father's property (or close to), and my dad and his brother would spend time in the house playing with the toy chest and play stove that is still in there. He doesn't remember the fireplace, as that may be new. I think that this would be a great contribution to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.248.180.181 (talk) 01:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

It is important to have a list of notable people associated with Monroe and McWebb is a good addition. MIG —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.48.3.174 (talk) 08:50, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Good But Short
This is a fairly good article but it could be bigger. What...no mention of the Monroe Monster? And yes, this is a small town, but somehow there seems to be things missing. (Things besides the monster!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gingermint (talk • contribs) 02:56, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Notability of Kaboom Enterprises.
I really don't think that a sub-regional fireworks company needs to be noted in intro. Especially when there is no mention of other, more known brands started in Monroe, such as Monroe Shocks and Struts. I'm going to remove it. 68.42.133.64 (talk) 00:27, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 6 external links on Monroe, Michigan. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090812190327/http://www.monroeinfo.com/set1_source.html to http://www.monroeinfo.com/set1_source.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090926023239/http://monroe.lib.mi.us/books_movies_music/special_collections/custer_statue_moved.htm to http://monroe.lib.mi.us/books_movies_music/special_collections/custer_statue_moved.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100707144930/http://climate.geo.msu.edu/Stations/5558/NARRAT.txt to http://climate.geo.msu.edu/Stations/5558/NARRAT.txt
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100128224700/http://www.ci.monroe.mi.us/Hofu_Mayor_Visit.cfm to http://www.ci.monroe.mi.us/Hofu_Mayor_Visit.cfm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100220112935/http://www.ci.monroe.mi.us/ to http://www.ci.monroe.mi.us/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140513013318/http://monroe-michigan.com/ to http://www.monroe-michigan.com/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 19:34, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Michelle Bowman?
The mention of the "Only In Monroe" public access show says that it is co-hosted by a Michelle Bowman, but the link provided takes me to the page for a Michelle Bowman who is a Kansas banking commissioner. Surely this is a bad link-- could someone confirm?

Jack Vermicelli 2warped@gmail.com 24.127.238.196 (talk) 19:47, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Notable church?
Hello,

I changed the church photo on the right to a more aesthetically please church. I don’t understand why the church on it now needs to be in the collage. I understand that it’s “historic” but the fact of the matter is no one looking at this Wikipedia page would know it or care for it, so I thought it would be better to put a church that has great architectural features and has not been changed for 160 years. The current church now, however, was gutted out and renovated and the outside is not what it once looked like, which begs the questions is it still a historic structure? I say no since it was gutted out and looks nothing like how it did when it was put on the list for historic places. That doesn’t necessarily matter and I believe what matters is putting pictures in the collage that are aesthetically pleasing, since Monroe is such a small town there is no point of saying a picture of a church needs to be kept because it’s more notable—in what capacity? It isn’t a world famous building and half of the people in Monroe barely know that church is historic unless they are historians. So to better market the city I believe a church of better architectural looks should be included in the photo collage.

Thanks Gregcar195467 (talk) 12:47, 7 October 2022 (UTC)


 * You didn't really wait long enough for a discussion on the matter before changing the collage picture back to Saint Michael the Archangel Church. To start, Wikipedia is not a promotional tool to market a city's best qualities, and when a collage is inserted into an article, there will always been opposing viewpoints on what images should be featured.  Monroe doesn't really have a lot of widely notable features that anyone would care about, but I would have say that St. Mary's Church is more notable that St. Michael for the following reasons:


 * 1) It is a nationally-recognized church that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places; St. Michael is not. I would say that being listed on the NRHP is a pretty big deal.
 * 2) It is a state-recognized historic church that is listed as a Michigan State Historic Site; St. Michael is not. St. John the Baptist Catholic Church is also state-recognized.
 * 3) St. Mary's predates St. Michael by several decades and is the county's oldest religious institution, regardless of when the current structures were built or who thinks which church is prettier.
 * 4) The exact numbers are unknown, but given the larger size of St. Mary's, I can assume it has a larger congregation.
 * 5) The attached school, St. Mary Catholic Central High School, is also older, much larger, and probably more recognized through its athletic programs.
 * 6) While this has no significance, I bet if you asked any regular person in Monroe to name at least one church, they will know St. Mary's and where it is located.
 * 7) Also trivial, but the main image in the St. Michael article isn't very good.


 * I'm not going to engage in an edit war over something as trivial as a single photo in a collage, but you're working a little too hard to promote and advertise St. Michael when it really is a dime-a-dozen church in the city. For the reasons above, St. Mary's should be in the collage, or there can simply be no church building inserted and a different subject can be included instead.  —Notorious4life (talk) 15:59, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Gentle Editors: It's not a zero sum game. Put them both in.  Somewhere. I am not concerned which gets 'top billing.'  We should err on the side of too much of the irrelevant, rather than too little of the relevant.  7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 16:25, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Hello Notorious4Life,

After doing some research it appears that you have been a strict opposer to St. Michael’s to even having a Wikipedia page, in fact, you proposed it’s deletion. For what reason? I’m not entirely sure, and it rightfully had stayed up due to its large number of members and it’s history. I have absolutely zero affiliation with St. Michael’s, I’m not a member nor am I catholic and go to church there, but I do take an interest in all the many great churches in the downtown landscape. But again I was doing research and YOU were the one who created the St. Mary’s page and I saw from the St. Michael’s page that you called the page out for being biased and just a big advertisement for the church, essentially you said it did not state facts rather than opinions to make it look good. I recall recently having to

Historically, St. Michael’s has always been the larger and more successful parish than St. Mary’s if we’ll get down to it. During the 70s and 80s St. Michael’s was the largest church by membership in the county and for years had a growing membership, this was never about which church was better, I simply was stating that a church with some historical significance and a church architectural significance should be placed in there. St. Michael’s is one of the tallest structures in the city, it dominates the skyline looking down the river. Currently, the memberships between each parish are similar and have good attendance. I’ll argue some of your points, which seem very biased for some reason towards St. Mary’s, and I did not think this had to be the argument between which church is better, and over a simple picture? For some reason you could not just let a different church be on there, and seeing as you have been opposed to St. Mike’s having a page and created the St. Mary’s page it appears we have a conflict of interest, and bias.

It is a nationally-recognized church that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places; St. Michael is not. I would say that being listed on the NRHP is a pretty big deal.—while I agree being on the NRHP is a big deal we’re talking about the entire complex, includes catholic central and was once the land of the old academy, see that the picture that’s included in the info box has the complex that is much better.

2. It is a state-recognized historic church that is listed as a Michigan State Historic Site; St. Michael is not. St. John the Baptist Catholic Church is also state-recognized.—again, St. John’s is way “newer” than st mikes. It is the preference of the church to not do anything to get a historical marker which is a shame but it’s not like they’re not allowed to have one, it st. Mikes reached out for one I’m sure they’d get one.

3. St. Mary's predates St. Michael by several decades and is the county's oldest religious institution, regardless of when the current structures were built or who thinks which church is prettier.— and that is true, but understanding the history to St. Mary’s the church looks nothing like it did from 1890 or even 1980, the church was completely changed in the late 1980s and St. Michael has been the same since the 1860s when the second and current church was built, and it’s not about what’s prettier, it’s about what has greater architectural features, st Michael’s offers a 180 something foot spire that is one of the tallest structures in the city. That’s a fact.

4. The exact numbers are unknown, but given the larger size of St. Mary's, I can assume it has a larger congregation.— larger in what aspect? St Michael’s holds more people and the memberships are comparable.

5. The attached school, St. Mary Catholic Central High School, is also older, much larger, and probably more recognized through its athletic programs.— SMCC is on land owned by the archdiocese of Detroit, not affiliated directly whatsoever with the parish of st Mary’s. SMCC should not be grouped in with st Mary’s parish whatsoever it’s not a direct line from that parish.

6. While this has no significance, I bet if you asked any regular person in Monroe to name at least one church, they will know St. Mary's and where it is located.— yeah I agree that has no significance, but would most people know where the battlefield is at or what it looks like, not many. Even the church of st Mary’s is often over looked by SMCC and the Custer statue.

7. Also trivial, but the main image in the St. Michael article isn't very good.— I’m not sure how but to each their own.

Again let me summarize by saying this was never meant to be made about which church was better, it was simple what would be cool and unique to add in the Monroe collage, to be completely honest I do not care what’s in the collage I was just trying to help in some way but it turned into a which church is better by someone who has a record of trying to delete st Michael’s from Wikipedia.

Gregcar195467 (talk) 17:22, 11 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I originally proposed the St. Michael article's deletion awhile ago, because the article was so poorly written; it didn't provide any content that warranted notability or verifiability guidelines for Wikipedia inclusion. But, my deletion was overriden by the consensus, and I respect that.  There is no reason for this discussion anymore.  Both images are in the Monroe infobox collage.  Just focus on improving the church article and providing some useful and better written information for the casual Wikipedia reader.  —Notorious4life (talk) 23:42, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Appreciate it. If I get around to it I will help with what I can on that church article and on other ones throughout the city. Good day to you! Gregcar195467 (talk) 00:39, 14 October 2022 (UTC)