While northern Michigan residents will wake today to find a few more inches of snow, Leelanau County residents in the late 19th century witnessed a much rarer phenomenon on this date. In the early hours of January 28, 1879, a meteor reportedly flew high in the Grand Traverse sky, leaving a hole in the ice of Lake Leelanau some 50 feet in diameter.

Accounts from when the meteor struck were collected by the Grand Traverse Herald, where the story was first reported on January 30, 1879. Initially it was difficult to gather facts about the meteor, as the stories of what area residents saw were conflicting. Residents “had it coming from every point of the compass and straight up and down: it varied in size from a pint bowl to a hogshead… it traveled ‘as fast as a horse could trot,’ and it ‘flew like lightning.’”

The Herald was able to confirm that just after 2am, residents saw the sky lit up by “an immense ball of fire” followed by a loud explosion powerful enough to shake the ground. If the stories of those who saw the occurrence are reliable, this very bright meteor would be considered a superbolide, a fireball reaching an apparent magnitude of -17 or greater -- brighter than a full moon.

Richard Fidler, co-editor of Grand Traverse Journal, heard of the historic incident and, in typical history buff form, “went on a fishing expedition” in search of details. He looked at microfilms of old papers including the Herald, where an article that talked about The Great Meteor was quite extensive.

Fidler also came across notes from the Report of the 49th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Sciences in 1879, containing information and conclusions about the northern Michigan meteor fall the Herald did not have.

Through descriptions of the incident -- including one from a night watchman at Hannah and Lay Company in Traverse City -- Professor Kirkwood of the British Association for the Advancement of Sciences determined “the fireball first came in sight nearly 100 miles over a point about 30 miles S.W. of Great Traverse City and disappeared about 26 miles above a point about 42 miles N.E. by eastwards from that town. The whole visible track was 124 miles.”

Fidler was curious why the news wasn’t reported around Detroit or Chicago, but thinks that this was due at least in part to the small population of northern Michigan residents at the time - he estimates that 3,000 people lived in the Grand Traverse area at the time. There were accounts of the meteor being seen as far as Charlevoix, bringing the population of those who would have witnessed the event closer to 10,000-15,000.

Fidler was particularly struck by the story of a local fisherman who described seeing a large flash and hearing a deafening crash around Carp Lake, now Lake Leelanau, and finding a 50-foot hole about 600 feet from shore where ice had been solid the day before. “It was surprising to find there might be the actual object at the southern end of Lake Leelanau. I always wondered, what if we put sensors down there that could detect iron… would they find anything?”

Read Fidler’s article in the Grand Traverse Journal here.