Michigan organizers are set to unveil a Titanic memorial in May honoring the nearly 70 Michigan-bound passengers who died when the ship sank more than a century ago.
The Great Lakes Titanic Connection will reveal the Michigan Titanic Memorial in Marine City on May 12, the Times Herald reported . The memorial will list the 69 names of the passengers headed to Michigan who were among the 1,500 who died while sailing from Southampton, England, for the United States in 1912.
The group raised $6,500 to pay for the memorial.
The idea began when Margaret Micoff started collecting Titanic memorabilia for her boutique clothing store. She studied the Titanic's history and stumbled across a community of people who were also fascinated with the story.
"When you have that many people, and nobody has done a memorial like other states have done, I thought we should," Micoff said. "It's about those people getting on that ship and coming to the New World and how many lives were affected."
Micoff received city approval for the memorial in 2015.
She hopes the memorial will attract tourism to the area from those interested in the Titanic and its history.
Micoff also believes it can serve as an educational tool for local teachers. She wants younger people to learn about the Titanic.
"Maybe they'll get bitten by the bug and preserve our local history, too," Micoff said.