Five World-changing Inventions Trace Their Roots Back To Michigan

Michigan has quietly shaped everyday life in ways most people never think about, from the litter box to the snowboard to the painted lines on every road you drive.

As a person who was born and raised in Michigan, of course I knew about Michigan's history with cars and cereal.  However, many things that were invented in Michigan took over the world fast.

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What are the 5 biggest things that were invented in Michigan?

1.  Cat Litter

A man sitting on a chair in a living room

Ed Lowe worked for his father’s industrial absorbents company in Cassopolis. While helping a neighbor in 1947, he discovered the benefits of using clay in litter boxes as opposed to messy sand and ash. Lowe began to brand his new mixture as “Kitty Litter,” thus creating a billion-dollar industry.

2. Baby Food

a baby eating food

I can't imagine a time before "baby food" was a thing.  After Daniel Frank Gerber's baby daughter became ill, he used his father's Fremont-based factory, the Fremont Canning Company, to mass produce baby food in 1927.

3. Snowboarding 

photography of person playing snowboarding during daytime

Muskegon-based engineer Sherman Poppen invented the snowboard, originally called the “Snurfer”, on Christmas Day of 1965 when he fastened two of his daughter’s skis together. As it gained in popularity, the term was changed to “snowboard."  Sherman Poppen was inducted into the U.S. Ski-Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2019.

4. Road Lines

two yellow lines painted on the asphalt of a street

MDOT calls road centerlines one of the “most important single traffic safety devices in the history of highway transportation,” and the idea began right here in Michigan.

In 1911, Edward Hines reportedly came up with the concept after witnessing a near collision between a horse-drawn buggy and an automobile. The first centerline was painted on a road in Trenton, and within a decade, every major road in Wayne County had one. What was once a groundbreaking safety innovation is now something drivers barely think twice about.

5. Computer Gaming

a person wearing headphones and using a computer

The “Father of Computer Gaming,” Canadian-born Sid Meier moved to Michigan as a child and went on to earn a degree in computer science from the University of Michigan. However, you can go all the way back to 1954, when William Brown and Ted Lewis created a pool computer game at the University of Michigan.  Incidentally, 1954 is the year that Sid Meier was born.