Samuel Zug - The Man Behind the Island

Samuel Zug

Samuel Zug is thought by some people to have been an industrialist, but that couldn't be further from the truth. He was a devout Presbyterian who took an interest in politics and human rights.

In 1836 at the tender age of twenty-years-old, Samuel Zug came to Detroit, Michigan from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Using money he saved as a bookkeeper in the Pittsburgh area, he went into the furniture making business with Marcus Stevenson, a Detroit investor.  

The prospect of endless stands of pine, oak and maple trees as raw material, and convenient access to Eastern markets by way of the Detroit River for their finished products made Detroit an ideal place for a young man to make his fortune. 

But in 1859 after twenty-three years in the furniture business, his partnership with Stevenson was dissolved leaving Samuel Zug a wealthy man to pursue real estate and political ambitions.

In 1859 (or 1876 depending on which source you choose), Samuel Zug purchased 325 acres of land along the Detroit River from Michigan's second Territorial governor, General Lewis B. Cass. Over 250 acres of the parcel was marshland with a sulfur spring bubbling up 1,200 barrels of mineral water a day.

The marshy peninsula of land was a part of Ecorse Township before it became the city of River Rouge. In unrecorded time, the land was rumored to be an ancient burial site for a number of native American tribes known to inhabit the area.

Samuel Zug and his wife Anna built a home on the island, but after ten years they decided that the marshland and natural sulfur spring on the site proved too much for them to endure. The Zugs surrendered the land to the red fox, water fowl, muskrats, and mosquitoes. The croaking frogs and singing insects were left to serenade the damp night air because the island was virtually uninhabitable.

In 1888, Samuel Zug authorized the River Rouge River Improvement Company to cut a small canal at the south end of his land. Known by locals as Mud Run, it was dredged out sixty feet wide and eight feet deep. 

Short Cut Canal at bottom of map was Mud Run.

The Zug family peninsula became a man-made island overnight separating it from the north end of Ecorse Township. The channel improved the flow of the Rouge River into the Detroit River, but it did little to circulate water around the newly formed island, leaving a slow-moving backwater.

On December 26, 1889, Samuel Zug died leaving his holdings to his wife, Anne, who died on June 10th,1891. It has been reported wrongly that Mr. Zug died in 1896. My source for the correct date of Zug's death comes from his tombstone in Detroit's Elmwood Cemetery.

The Zug heirs sold the island for $300,000 to George Brady and Charles Noble, who wanted to use the site for an industrial dumping ground. The island was diked with interlocking steel panels and back-filled with construction rubble and dredging waste to raise the ground above the water table and reclaim the land from its natural state.

Heavy industry was about to move onto the island but Mr. Zug never lived to see it. The island's namesake was "Waiting for the Coming of Our Lord" as the inscription on his grave marker proclaims.

In addition to being a bookkeeper and the owner of a successful furniture manufacturing company, Samuel Zug also is credited with being one of the founding members of the Republican Party, which was considered to be the progressive party of the day. Their first official meeting took place on July 6, 1854, in Jackson, Michigan.

The Republicans were an abolitionist party that came to national attention when they won 33% of the presidential vote from the Democrats and the Whigs in 1856. Four years later in 1860, they broke through the two-party system and elected Abraham Lincoln to the White House.

Samuel Zug was an anti-slavery advocate long before Lincoln was elected and The Civil War began. He bought and set aside a parcel of land for refugee slaves in the city of Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada, a destination of the Underground Railroad. What other support he gave to the Abolitionist Movement is shrouded in the dim history of time and whispers of the unrecorded past.

At the time of his death, Samuel Zug was unaware of the mighty industrial complex his soggy marshland would become. He would never know the history Zug Island would make possible or the long-term environmental impact the steel industry would have on the area and its people.

In Detroit's Elmwood Cemetery

Zug Island closes its steel-making operations in April, 2020.            

Zug Island Book Talk At Pasquale's in Royal Oak, Michigan - September 30th, 2014

I am pleased to announce that I will be in the Detroit area speaking about Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel on September 30th, 2014 at 8:00 PM. The event will be held at Pasquale's Italian Restaurant in the Mediterranean Room located at 31555 Woodward Ave. in Royal Oak, Michigan. The Book Club of Detroit (BCD) and the Detroit Drunken History Society (DDHS) are co-sponsoring the event. An elevator is available for disabled patrons.

In addition to discussing Zug Island and my experiences working there in the summer of 1967, I will give some historical background about the Detroit area in the Sixties and some of the factors that led to the worst urban riot in the history of the United States. The tremors and fallout from that "rebellion," as it was known by many intercity Detroiters, are still being felt by the city today.

Zug Island Where the Rouge and Detroit Rivers Meet

If you would like to join us for dinner before the book talk, the cost is $26 ($23 for DBC members). For attendees not interested in purchasing dinner, there will be a $5 admission fee for non-DBC members to help offset the cost of the banquet room. The dinner starts at 6:30 PM with the book talk starting just after 8:00 PM.

Available entree choices are eggplant parmigiana, chicken cacciatore, or boiled cod. All meals come with your choice of Caesar or Greek salad, mostaccioli with marinara or Alfredo sauce, green beans amandine, and Italian bread or garlic bread sticks. Coffee, tea, pop (soda), and juice are included with the meal, or a cash bar is available for beer, wine, or spirits.

Advance registration for dinner is required. Checks and entree choices should be mailed to:
   
Book Club of Detroit                                                   
Maurice Barie
860 Spencer
Ferndale, MI 48220

Link to BCD: http://www.bookclubofdetroit.org/ 
Link to DDHS: http://www.meetup.com/Detroit-Drunken-Historical-Society/
 



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                              

Gregory Fournier Presents a Compelling Tale of Friendship and Racial Strife in

Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel

Santee, CA – The statistics remain legend: 43 reported deaths, 7,000 arrests, over 4,000 injuries, 2,500 buildings looted or burnt to the ground, 5,000 residents left homeless, 16,682 fire runs, and a river of fire ten blocks long. In 1967, the Model City erupted in flames as African Americans took to the streets to protest the city’s atmosphere of racial hatred and prejudice. Gregory Fournier’s debut novel, Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel (ISBN 978-1-4116-8691-5), takes place during this chaotic time, when the race riots in Detroit led to one of the most explosive episodes of civil unrest in United States history.

Set in rust-belt Michigan in 1967, Zug Island tells the story of Jake Malone, an eighteen-year-old college student who is kicked out of school and find works as one of the few white employees in the labor crew at Great Lakes Steels' Zug Island blast furnace and coke oven complex. Forced to prove that he can handle the grueling physical work on the island, Jake earns the respect of his African American coworkers and develops a tentative friendship with Theo Semple, a restless steelworker who longs to reunite with his wife and son in Memphis, Tennessee. The two men find camaraderie despite the racial animosity and violence that exists on Detroit’s mean streets. When riots break out across the city of Detroit, Jake must defend his friendship with Theo and reconcile his own mixed feelings about his position in the world. 

An unflinching look at segregated suburbia and the environment of civil strife that led to the race riots of the sixties, Zug Island explores the events leading up to the largest and worst riot in the nation's history, while providing an unconditional look at a young man forced to deal, for the first time, with open prejudice. Told with straightforward candor and an authentic voice, Zug Island is a coming-of-age story that explores the bonds of loyalty and friendship in the face of entrenched racial tension and civil unrest.

“After almost fifty years, the shadow of the riots still hangs over the Detroit area like a dark cloud, though many of the area’s youth know little or nothing about them,” said Fournier. “The lessons learned and the memory of the forty-three victims is fading from the collective consciousness. This is what prompted me to write Zug Island.”

Gregory A. Fournier received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Eastern Michigan University in English Language Arts and Sociology. He has taught secondary school for over thirty years in Michigan and San Diego, and he was an adjunct professor at Cuyamaca College in San Diego County for ten years. In addition to Zug Island, he has written a stage adaptation of Crime and Punishment. He is currently finishing up his next project, a true crime work about Ypsilanti serial killer John Norman Collins entitled The Rainy Day Murders.

       For more information on Gregory A. Fournier or Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel, please visit: zugislandthenovel.com or http://amazon.com/Gregory-A.-Fournier/e/B00BDNEG1C

Zug Island Author Interview - Gregory A. Fournier

Bruce Harding, managing director of the Los Angeles Book Festival, interviewed me last week about my debut novel which earned an Honorable Mention at their 2011-2012, March 3rd awards ceremony held at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.
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Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel marks the debut of novelist Gregory A. Fournier, who puts his spin on heavy industry in the grimy backwaters of Detroit's steel and iron mills. The story set in 1967, follows white Jake Malone, kicked out of college, and Theo Semple, a black worker at Zug Island. Together they discover a friendship that challenges the conventions of the times, as the cauldron of racial animus bubbles over. We caught up with the author to ask a few questions about the story's creation and its origins in a blue collar world that is rapidly vanishing.

Bruce: How do you feel about Zug Island, the actual location? On the one hand, you must have an affection for the place, given that you've devoted enough focus on it to create a work of art. On the other hand, your book pulls no punches on its aesthetics.

Greg: I am still in awe of the enormity of Zug Island and the raw energy it takes to make iron and steel. The Medieval base elements of fire, earth, water, and air all play their part in the alchemy of steel making. It was the education of my life, and every time I'm in the Detroit area, I make a pilgrimage there. The steam cloud still billows like clockwork from the quenching station.

Bruce: Tell us about the people Zug Island is based on. Are they employed there out of desperation or desire or inevitability, as your character seemed to be?

Greg: People who worked on the labor crew weren't looking for careers; they needed jobs. These guys were working class people with no middle-class pretense. Life at Zug Island was raw and close to the ground, and it had a primal energy about it lacking in the suburbs of Detroit. Most of the characters in my novel are based on my memories of real people.

Bruce: Most novels are escapist in their settings. Yet you chose to look at some ugly truths. Tell us your reasoning.

Greg: Racism is an issue more often swept under the rug than openly discussed these days. But many of the same attitudes and prejudices that created an atmosphere for the race riots of the sixties abound today, more subtle perhaps, but still deeply rooted in white supremacy. Whether you hide it under a sheet or a teabag, racism steeps through.

Bruce: Was Zug Island a hard book to write emotionally?

Greg: No! But when I finally came up with the ending after four attempts, it did break me up some, and it still does each time I read it. Fortunately, many of my readers share that experience with me.

Bruce: Tell us your impressions of Detroit today.

Greg: I believe Detroit is moving in a positive direction after over fifty years. Much of the old city has been razed, but some of the historical architecture can still be seen. It's tough being a Detroiter. It's either boom-or-bust depending on the trends of the automobile business. The Big Three have been reporting strong earnings, but the area needs jobs and diversification. Overall, I'm optimistic that the city is on the rebound thanks to the leadership of Detroit's mayor, ex-Detroit Piston, Dave Bing.

Bruce: What advice is there for someone who is trapped in a Zug Island situation?

Greg: Save your money and look for another job. But this is the reality, there is a class of men who don't mind physical work or getting their hands dirty. The pay and the benefits are good, so the hardships pale in comparison. Zug Island is a world unto itself, and most people seem to tolerate life there pretty well.

Bruce: Would you write about race relations again?

Greg: Yes, and I may. Though this is a topic many people shy away from, it is a fundamental aspect of American society that needs to be explored in a contemporary context. Because of the issues complexity, the story lines are endless. Racism in America is an issue that should be on the trash heap of history, but first it needs to be documented. I think there is an attitude of white supremacy that lingers particularly in people who are socially unsophisticated. That's one of the things that bothered me about the era then and bothers me today. There was a very pronounced color line and there were areas you just don't go into as a black person and areas that white people were not welcome to go in. I was privileged to walk on both sides of that line for a short period of time.

Bruce: Where were you when the Detroit riots happened? Has your perspective on its causes changed?

Greg: If you haven't guessed, Jake is a representation of myself, and I was with my buddy from work, Otis, wandering around 12th St. a few hours before the riots began when a blind pig was raided by Detroit police. That part of my novel is directly based on personal experience, as is most of it. When I returned to college a year later, I was able to place the riots in a larger sociological context.

Bruce: Was writing the book harder than you believed it would be?

Greg: Compared to book promotion, writing seems easy. Once I retired from teaching, I cobbled together several short stories I had worked on for the previous five summers. Then I researched Zug Island, wrote an introduction, and the project took off. The ending was the hardest part for me, and I wrote four different ones until the final ending revealed itself to me in an epiphany. All-in-all, I enjoyed writing Zug Island, so it didn't seem like work to me.

Bruce: Although Zug Island is a difficult place to work, you have to wonder if there are not enough "Zug Islands" anymore....

Greg: Not everyone can become a celebrity or a professional athlete. There has to be something for people who are not particularly motivated to be white collar workers or service employees. There are people who prefer physical work - there is a certain Zen to it. But most of those jobs are permanently gone.The world is rapidly changing and so must the people in it.

Bruce: What's next for you?

Greg: My next project has the working title, The Water Tower. It is the true crime story of John Norman Collins, the alleged co-ed killer in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, Michigan, between the summers of 1967-1969. This case fell through the cracks nationally because of the Charles Manson case which broke open at the same time. I'm discovering some interesting things about the Collins case.

Available on Amazon.com and Kindle ebook.

Dame Fortune Winks - I Smile Back

All in a day's work at Zug Island.

I had just dropped into Detroit for the day to do a segment on Zug Island with Joe Rogan for his new show, Question Everything, premiering July 16th on the Syfy Network.

Immediately afterwards, I headed south down deserted W. Jefferson towards Downriver but decided to stop at the Zug Island sign and take a picture for a blog post on my trip while I was there. 

I swung my rental car into a small parking lot across the street between some abandoned Delray ruins and pointed the nose of the Japanese car towards the driveway.

Why I felt I needed another photo of the sign isn't clear to me, but I snapped a quick one and returned to my car, shut the door, and turned the key. In that small amount of time, a large car came out of nowhere and straddled my only escape route, a weed ravished driveway. 

My first thought was "Oh, shit! Welcome to Detroit."

The power window on the passenger side of the full size car went down and a white guy with a fancy camera said, "I see we are doing the same thing."

Not wanting to feel trapped, I got out of my car and engaged the person in a conversation. "What's your interest in Zug Island?" I asked as if it were any of my business.

Blast furnace being tapped at night.

"I'm making a documentary film about the environmental effects of Zug Island on the area."

"Fascinating," I replied.

"What's your interest in the sign?" he asked.

I told him I wrote a book called Zug Island:A Detroit Riot Novel. "I'm..."

"I know who you are. I saw your book on the Zug Island website, and I've read some of your blog posts." 

With that ice-breaker, we shook hands.

"Would you be interested in doing a few segments about Zug Island for the indie film I'm making?"

"Do steelworkers have dirt under their fingernails? Sure," I said. "But I don't live in the Detroit area anymore, I'm leaving at the crack of dawn tomorrow."

We both looked disappointed. Then I was quick to add, "I'll be back in town in a few weeks doing research on my current project, The Rainy Day Murders, about John Norman Collins and the coed killings of 1967-1969 in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor."

"That works for me," he said. We exchanged contact information, and I waited a couple of days for a gmail with more information.

What this young filmmaker wants me to do is give a short biography of Samuel Zug at Zug's grave site and then do a couple of other segments about my experiences working on the island in 1967. Sounds easy enough.

Back then, the area was little more than a slum; now it is a ghost town, another casualty of rust belt technology impatient for redevelopment.

When completed, this film will be submitted to indie film festivals. Then, the producers hope to secure theatrical distribution and/or seek television broadcast opportunities. Whatever the outcome, it's a great experience for me that I couldn't miss.

I'm not one to believe in luck or fate, but if I'd been one minute sooner or later taking a picture of that sign, and if I hadn't been doing an interview with Joe Rogan that very morning on another project, I would have missed out on this opportunity. 

I think I'll put this experience down as dumb luck and follow Dame Fortune like a damned fool.

My Summer in Detroit - 2013

Twilight in Detroit

I just returned from several weeks in and around my hometown of Detroit, Michigan. I was doing field research with my Detroit counterpart, Ryan M. Place. For the last several years, he and I have been seeking information and documents related to the John Norman Collins coed killing cases of the late nineteen-sixties.

I was in the Detroit area for three weeks in June and July and drove 2,300 miles in my rental car crisscrossing much of Michigan. Ryan and I went wherever we could to find individuals with credible information who were willing to tell their stories. We were very busy.

But because of the somber and dark nature of our subject matter, we made it a point to get out and do something a little different each week. The first week we went to the Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit to meet with Canadian filmmaker, Mark Dal Bianco. 

***

At Elmwood Cemetery for Zug shoot.

Mark is making an indie documentary film about Zug Island and its environmental effects on Canada and the United States. After a brief meeting with Stewart McMillin (noted Detroit tour guide), Mark Dal Bianco, and Ryan, we all headed to the burial plot of Samuel Zug, the man Zug Island is named after. 

On the strength of the introduction of my book, Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel, Mark wanted me to give a brief biography of Mr. Zug, at the site of his grave marker. 

When we were finished there, we drove over to the ghost town of Delray which once existed outside the blast furnace and coke oven plant. I filmed a segment talking about working conditions on the island in 1967, the year of the Detroit riots. 

The documentary will go on from there and delve into some of the current controversies Zug Island finds itself at the center of with its neighbors. Notably, the Windsor Hum.

We were very lucky to catch a break in the rainy weather for the shoot. Afterwards, we had a wonderful dinner at the Polish Village Cafe in Hamtramck, a city within the city limits of Detroit. It turned out to be a lovely day.

***

On the second week of our quest for knowledge and insight into the John Norman Collins case, we went on a field trip to where Collins began his life sentence behind bars, Jackson Prison. The Seven-Block (1934-2007) tour was led by prison docent Judy Gail Krasnow.

We were taken on a bus to the Michigan Theater in Jackson to view a short film history of the various incarnations of the Jackson prison system over the years, and then we listened to an orientation lecture before going over to Seven-Block. 

Our docent, Judy, asked the thirty or so people on the tour if any of us were from Jackson, Michigan. A smattering of hands went up. "Do we have any former guards or prison employees in the crowd today?" Several more hands went up.

Ryan and I were sitting in the front row when she asked me where I was from. "Originally from Detroit," I said, "but now I live in San Diego."

Old Jackson Prison Walls

"Really?" she said, in surprise. "I just returned from visiting friends in San Diego."

"No!"

Judy held up her Seaport Village shopping bag to prove it. "What, may I ask, brings you here to Jackson prison today?"

I was hoping she would ask me that. "I'm doing research and writing a book on John Norman Collins."

I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head. "You're kidding me."

"Nope!"

Turns out that Judy was given a private prison tour of Marquette Prison in Michigan's Upper Peninsula just a couple of months before, and she was able to meet briefly with Collins in front of his cell. She found Mr. Collins to be alert and engaging. 

"Let's talk after the tour,"  she said, to me.

And talk we did. When The Rainy Day Murders is released, Judy will see about getting it carried in the prison stores. Not a bad outing for a field trip.

They serve a box lunch on the tour of Seven-Block in the prison mess area between the five galleries of cells that face across from each other. Nice touch!

For more information and reservations on Jackson Prison Tours, contact Judy Gail Krasnow at 517-795-2112, or check out the link below.

***

End of an era - old Tiger Stadium

I have a deep childhood memory of walking into a gray cavernous building that was dark and shadowy inside with screened ramps and overhead walkways. The air was heavy with tobacco smoke and stale with Strohs beer vapor. I remember walking along among a throng of adults mostly. I didn't know where we were headed for sure, but I followed my dad with my little brother in tow.

We finally made it. I saw the diamond for the first time and the vibrant field glistened like the emerald jewel it was. I came out into the comforting light of a Sunday afternoon Tiger game at Briggs Stadium. Man, I never knew a Coke, a hot dog, and a bag of peanuts could taste so good.

On the last week of my latest Michigan trip in July, I went with friends and saw my first Tiger game in the modern Comerica Park.  

The stadium is airy and open, not like the fabled Tiger/Briggs Stadium of the last century, and the cigarette and cigar smokers are gone.

After a week of heavy rain, the weather cleared on game day and Tigers fans were out in force ready to take on the White Sox.

But before the game started, my friends and I split a pizza and drank a couple of beers at a local bar to avoid the high cost of stadium concessions. 

In the old days, a person could have a great outing with ten or twenty dollars in his pocket. Now that's what a beer and a hot dog costs at the concession stands. Everything is expensive these days. But Detroit beat Chicago, so there was joy in Mudville, that night anyway. Go Tigers!

For information on the current schedule of Detroit tours, connect with Stewart McMillin's website: mcmillintours.com 

For information on Jackson Prison tours, contact: https://historicprisontours.com/category/uncategorized

For authentic Polish food in the Detroit area, go to Hamtramck and visit Polish Village Cafe: PolishVillageCafe.us 

Zug Island - Focal Point of Windsor Hum?

Zug Island from Windsor, Ontario

For the last several years, residents of Windsor, Ontario, have complained of a low frequency hum which rattles their windows and keeps them awake at night. Canadian scientists have pinpointed the source as Zug Island, an industrial complex on the United States side of the Detroit River.

Because the blast furnace and coke oven industrial complex is an international border installation, it has come under the aegis of Homeland Security. Surveillance has been beefed up and one of two entrances to the island has been blockaded and fenced off. The exaggerated security of Zug Island combined with the mysterious hum has led to a number of conspiracy theories. 

The SyFy Network is sending Joe Rogan to Detroit to look into this matter, and I've been asked to participate because of my previous on-the-job experience working there and my knowledge of the plant. The producers saw my book, Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel, and thought I could add something to their documentary. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but this project is kookie enough to interest me.

To learn more about the the Windsor Hum, view the link below:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/zug-island-the-story-of-the-windsor-hum

Gregory A. Fournier Speaks about Zug Island on the Michael Dresser Show

On Friday, April 19, 2013, I did a web radio interview for the Michael Dresser Show. It has been a while since I had done any live Zug Island promotion, but with summer coming, I thought it might be a good time to let readers know that Zug Island makes a great vacation read.

Despite its serious subject matter, race relations during the summer of the Detroit Riots, Zug Island is an often humorous account of a college dropout and an intercity young man who fall in and out of rhythm on Detroit's mean streets to discover that the face of racism comes in every shade of color.

Zug Island is a blue collar, coming of age, buddy novel which tells a slice of history much neglected in the telling of this horrible period of Detroit's history. It's been almost fifty years since July 23, 1967, and the city has yet to recover from its conflagration.


Amidst all the devastation, an unlikely friendship endures which suggests that hope for the city's recovery lies with its people and not its politicians.

Listen to my latest Zug Island web radio interview (15 minutes):
http://michaeldressershow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Greg-Fournier-4-19-2013.mp3

Is Zug Island Guilty of the Windsor Hum?

Joe Rogan and I upwind of Zug Island

Last week, I spent two days in scenic Detroit amidst the ruins of the ghost town of Delray and an icon of the rust belt, the industrial complex known as Zug Island.

I was there taping a segment for a new Syfy Network show called Question Everything hosted by Joe Rogan. It debuts on Tuesday, July 16th at 9/8c. See the link below for more details.

Joe is looking into the theory that the Windsor Hum keeping Canadian residents awake at night emanates from United States Steel's Zug Island blast furnace, pig iron operation across the Detroit River.

One theory has it that the annoying sound and vibration is coming from a secret installation on the island, connected somehow with the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Alaska.

Work began on that sub-arctic government project in 1993. An array of high powered radio frequency transmitters covering an area of thirty-six acres excites a targeted portion of the ionosphere for scientific and military applications. What those applications are is not clear to the public which makes this program popular among conspiracy theorists.

The project is located in Gakona, Alaska, and it is funded by the United States Air Force, the United States Navy, the University of Alaska, and the Defense Department. Its remote location contributes to the mystique of the project.

 Zug Island is on the United States/Canadian border and is considered by Homeland Security as a border installation, so security has been increased. 

While we were shooting my interview, a black SUV with heavily tinted windows watched our every move. The co-producer told me that the mystery truck had been following them at a distance for two days.

Because United States Steel refuses to comment on the HAARP allegations, it begs the question for many people, "What are they trying to hide?". For my money, the Windsor Hum controversy cuts a sorry figure as a conspiracy theory. It doesn't even make a credible urban legend. 

Now, what the government might be doing in the cavernous international Detroit Salt Mine, which runs far and wide under the area, is anybody's guess.

http://www.mmatko.com/joe-rogan-talks-about-his-new-syfy-show-joe-rogan-questions-everything/

http://fornology.blogspot.com/2013/05/zug-island-focal-point-of-windsor-hum.html