Origins: From J-Hop Raffle to Functional Memorial

It was December 1946 -- just over a year after the end of World War II -- and University of Michigan students were excited to bring back the highly popular Junior Hop (J-Hop), a glittering three-day student formal started by fraternities in the 1860s that included dancing, morning-after breakfasts, hayrides, and house parties. This year's lineup featured big band leader and saxophonist Jimmie Lunceford, and former star trumpeter with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Ziggy Ellman. However, many students were concerned that such frivolity clashed with the tenor of a world so recently ravaged by war. As a result, the J-Hop Committee persuaded the Student Legislature to turn its traditional J-Hop raffle into a fundraiser for a living memorial, and a student committee urged the University regents to adopt a resolution to pursue the idea of such a functional memorial.

Functional - or living - memorials were becoming increasingly popular after World War II as a more palatable alternative to the traditional statue or obelisk associated with memorials of earlier generations. The J-Hop committee’s initial idea was to build a chapel or recreation building in the Arboretum.

By January 1947, there was considerable enthusiasm for the project -- especially among the burgeoning World War II student veterans taking advantage of the G.I. Bill (of the 18,000 U-M students at the time, 12,000 were WWII veterans) -- and this prompted the creation of a significantly larger joint student-faculty-alumni fundraiser and the J-Hop raffle funds were turned over to this effort. An executive committee was formed that included a central committee of all student organizations; a sub-committee of the student legislature; and a faculty-alumni advisory group.

Thus began the University’s first major fundraising effort to date.

The Board of Regents unanimously approved this yet-to-be-named project upon the recommendation of U-M President Alexander Ruthven. Ralph Sawyer, Dean of the Rackham Graduate School, took up the initiative by appointing a War Memorial Committee. Among this committee's members were three WWII veterans: Arthur DerDerian, an aviation cadet; Arthur Rude, a first lieutenant in the Army; and E. Virginia Smith, a nurse in the Pacific Theater.

Harnessing Atomic Energy for the Greater Good

But what would this memorial look like and how would it function? What would it be called?

War Memorial Committee chair and Dean of Students, Erich A. Walter, approached several friends and former alumni. The University also sent letters to world leaders, authors, and stars -- figures such as Winston Churchill, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, E. B. White, and Orson Welles -- seeking advice and input.

But it was Fred Smith, a 39-year-old U-M alumnus and New York publishing executive, whose proposal for the memorial most engaged U-M’s student body and administrative leadership. His idea? To harness the power of the atom for the greater good. He wrote, “As vital to the future of mankind as the continuation of religion; and the devotion of the people involved in it should be no less unstinted... We have named the memorial The Phoenix Project because the whole concept is one of giving birth to a new enlightenment, a conversion of ashes into life and beauty.” 

The Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project (MMPP) would be "a living, continuous memorial" - a unique endeavor dedicated to exploring ways that the atom could aid mankind rather than destroy it. The MMPP was created by action of the U-M Board of Regents on May 1, 1948, and in his Memorial Day address that year, U-M President Alexander Ruthven called it “A memorial that would eliminate future war memorials.” 

The idealism was matched only by its danger: To bring such a destructive force to a college campus with the intent of harnessing its power for the benefit of mankind was a radical idea requiring a radical approach.

"The most important undertaking in our University's history." 

Under the leadership of National Executive Chairman Chester Lang, the Phoenix Campaign grew into a national effort that would be the first significant fundraising campaign initiated by the University -- at the time "the most important undertaking in our University's history," according to Ruthven. The Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project Laboratory would eventually be funded by over 30,000 alumni and corporate donors. By 1953, the campaign raised $7.3 million for a research building and endowment eventually amounting to over $20 million.

The project would mark many firsts:

* The first fundraising effort in U-M history
* The first set of laboratory buildings on the new U-M North Campus
* The first university in the world to explore the peaceful uses of atomic energy
* And it would initiate the U-M’s new Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, the first such university program in the world

“M Glow Blue!” Henry Ford Donates a Nuclear Reactor

The Ford Motor Company alone donated $1 million to build the Ford Nuclear Reactor (FNR) as part of the Laboratory.

In February 1955, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) licensed the Ford Nuclear Reactor (FNR) and construction on the reactor began later that summer. The reactor would be built in a special unit at the north end of the Laboratory and it was the first reactor ever requested for construction by an agency other than the AEC. The FNR was dedicated on November 16, 1956, reaching its first critical mass on September 19, 1957, and level 1 megawatt on August 11, 1958. Eventually operating at two megawatts of power, the “icy blue glow” of the more than 55,000-gallon reactor pool inspired the motto of the reactor workers: “M-Glow Blue!”

Moreover, the Department of Energy would fabricate, transport, and dispose of the fuel at no cost to the University.

U-M professor of electrical engineering Henry Gomberg was the first director of the Phoenix Project. And the College of Engineering was responsible for developing its instructional and research program. The FNR would operate 24 hours per day for the next 50 years. 

Bubble Chambers and Mummies: Research at the Phoenix Laboratory

Research at the Laboratory took place across multiple disciplines, helping to fund studies on the applications of nuclear technology in fields as diverse as medicine, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, archeology, engineering, zoology, anthropology, and law. It saw uses for cancer treatment, bone grafts, medieval coins, and even an Egyptian mummy.

Former MMPP director David Wehe remembers, “I recall lively lunchroom discussions with engine researchers from GM and Ford discussing measurement techniques with the nuclear chemists inventing new diagnostic pharmaceuticals and archeologists testing the authenticity of ancient relics -- all of them working within the Phoenix Memorial Laboratory.” 

Project highlights include Gamma ray sterilization; carbon-14 dating; radioactive iodine for cancer treatment and detection; gravitationally-induced quantum interference, as well as the bubble chamber design allowing rapid, easily interpreted photographs of rare atomic interactions that won Donald Glaser a 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics. The laboratory also included a greenhouse and saw foundational research on the effects of radiation on plant life.

The FNR was also used to train utility workers in nuclear instrumentation and reactor operation and was visited over the years by world leaders and distinguished scientists such as Robert Oppenheimer and Hans Bethe. MMPP leadership was also instrumental in founding the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) arm of the AEC.

By June 1997, however, the Ford Nuclear Reactor Review Committee estimated the reactor was costing the university an average of $1 million a year and requested input from university departments, as well as organizations outside the university community, on continued use of the facility. Although many groups actively campaigned to keep the reactor operational, the decision was made to close it. The reactor took nearly a decade to dismantle and was officially decommissioned in 2003.  

Rededicating the MMPP 

After extensive renovations, the former Phoenix Memorial Laboratory in 2013 became the home of the U-M Energy Institute, which continued to support the Project’s unique memorial mission. In spring 2017, after a decade of dismantling the FNR and clearing the building of radiation, the building was rededicated as the Nuclear Engineering Laboratory with a focus on advancing nuclear security, nonproliferation, safety, and energy. In 2021, the Energy Institute was disbanded and the Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) program regained proprietorship. In April 2019, the department launched the Fastest Path to Zero Initiative, with the mission of “identifying, innovating, and pursuing the fastest path to zero emissions by optimizing clean energy deployment through energy innovation, interdisciplinary analysis, and evidence-driven approaches to community engagement.” The Fastest Path offices are now housed within the MMPP. 

A rededication of the MMPP took place in 2022. The labs and offices are occupied by two groups: NERS and the Materials Research Institute (MRI).

According to former MMPP director David Wehe, “Today, the MMPP continues its legacy of honoring WWII veterans by providing seed funding to researchers seeking to harness the atom for the public good. While the building also serves other purposes now, the hall still echoes those exciting discoveries that came from the MMPP.”

Historical photos and articles about the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project

A corresponding physical exhibit is on display in the second-floor exhibit space at the Downtown Library from March 16 - June 14, 2024.

In this day and age, when most townies head to Detroit Metro Airport to travel by commercial airplane, it's easy to overlook our own small airfield. In the 1920s--"The Golden Age of Aviation"--Ann Arbor Municipal Airport (ARB/KARB) was front page news. In October of 1928, many well-dressed men and women gathered together on the far edge of our town to celebrate this great achievement. Popping champagne would have been appropriate, if not for prohibition. This was a story of progress, a source of local pride, the scene of many ladies in cloche hats, and a few gentlemen sporting leather aviator caps with large earflaps.

1925 - A Flying Field?

With major advancements in aviation, many airports surfaced across the state of Michigan in the 1920s. On July 2, 1925, an Ann Arbor Times News editorial declared "A flying field, with all the modern conveniences for aviators, is being discussed unofficially in official circles of Ann Arbor...No community of any size will want to be without a landing place within a decade or less." The idea of a local airport was appealing, but ultimately went dormant for a year.

1926 - Steere's Farm Is Suitable

In July of 1926, the Ann Arbor Park Commission launched a serious push for a local airport, and turned their attention to nearly 300 acres in Pittsfield Township. Just south of Ann Arbor, stretched across State Street, this land was already owned by the city. Purchased by Ann Arbor's Water Commission around 1914, the property was farmland, with deep gravel springs supplying much of the city's drinking water. The property also had wetlands, offering the University of Michigan a wide variety of research materials, including venom from resident massasauga rattlesnakes. Formerly owned by retired professor Joseph Beal Steere, the land was still referred to as "Steere's Farm" and "Steere's Swamp". Hackley Butler, park commissioner, and Eli Gallup, park superintendent, collaborated on plans to obtain a portion of the Steere farm property as a site for the flying field. Professor Felix Pawlowski, University of Michigan Aeronautical Engineer, was consulted and gave his stamp of approval. Gallup described Steere's Farm as "lying high, with no obstructions...suitable for the landing of light or heavy planes".

1927 - Airport Site Is Approved

For another year, deliberation swirled around a potential landing field on the Steere's Farm land. Public sentiment toward a local airport shifted in the summer of 1927, when Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight made world history. Both of his parents were University of Michigan alumni, which added to the local interest. Ann Arbor residents, like the rest of the country, were suddenly enamored with aviation, and public interest in flying was high. A new airport was now deemed essential to maintain Ann Arbor's reputation as a prosperous, forward-moving municipality.

'AIRPORT SITE IS APPROVED' was a front page Ann Arbor Times News story on November 26, 1927. City aldermen supported using a portion of the Steere's Farm land, and would recommend transfer of the property from the water commission to the park commission. The Chamber of Commerce and City Council both approved the proposal, with assurance that no harm would result to the wells. In early December 1927, 115 acres of Steere's Farm were transferred between city departments. Ann Arbor City Engineer George H. Sandenburgh, immediately began designing an airfield.

January - April 1928, Leonard Flo & The Ann Arbor Flying Club

Lieutenant Leonard Stanley Flo was a city resident for less than five years, but is a permanent part of the Ann Arbor Airport's history. After graduating from U. S. Army Air Corps training in Texas, he served with the First Pursuit Group at Selfridge Field in Michigan. Flo flew as an air mail pilot in Florida, and was also a pilot for the Wise Birds Club in Detroit. He was living on the edge of West Park, near downtown Ann Arbor, as plans came together for a local airfield.

In January 1928, Lt. Flo submitted a letter to the city, proposing himself as manager of the new airport. He suggested a contract giving him responsibility of operating and maintaining the airfield, and allowing him to conduct a flying school on the property. He asked for no compensation from the city, as he would profit from his business, Flo Flying Services. As an experienced flyer, he had inspected the property and found it excellently located with natural advantages for flying facilities. City officials welcomed his proposal, and began drafting a formal agreement in March 1928.

March 1928 also saw the birth of the Ann Arbor Flying Club, a group of Ann Arbor men who joined together to help establish an airport. The list of charter members was essentially a "who's who" of Ann Arbor businessmen, with many joining simply for networking and the status of being involved in the up-and-coming world of aviation. With annual dues starting at $25, equivalent to over $400 a year in 2023, membership was limited to financially privileged citizens. Within a week of being formed, membership in the club jumped to over 100 individuals.

With support from Leonard Flo, and financial assistance from the Ann Arbor Flying Club, work on the new airfield progressed rapidly. By the middle of April 1928, work crews were busy rolling & leveling the land, and installing cinder drainage tiles.

May 19, 1928 - First Landing, 12:05 p.m.

"Fix the date in your mind, and keep it there, because some day you will want to "remember" the first ship at the first airport, an occasion that marked a progressive step by this community." - Ann Arbor Daily News, Editorial, May 19, 1928

In May 1928, Leonard Flo decided to attempt a flight from the Ford Airport in Dearborn onto the Steere Farm property. He hoped to prove to local citizens that a landing could be made on the prepared runway, even after the ground was soaked with several days of spring rain. The Ann Arbor Flying Club had put nearly $5,000 toward the airport project, and the landing was a success.

Accompanying him in a Waco biplane were Eli Gallup, park superintendent, and Harold 'Charlie' Ristine, local news reporter. Gallup was encouraged by the results, and planned for further improvements on the prepared runway, dragging/rolling/tiling a second runway, lighting, and construction of a hangar.

Despite the fact that it was probably really loud and cold in that biplane, Charlie Ristine published a glowing review of his flight in the Ann Arbor Daily News. An editorial lauding the achievement was also printed. A photographer captured photos of the event at the future airport, and the front page of the paper featured an image of the three men smiling and wearing leather aviator caps.

July 17, 1928 - Ann Arbor Airmail Service Inaugurated

Thompson Aeronautical Corporation (TAC), out of Cleveland, Ohio, was awarded one of the early Contract Air Mail routes (CAM 27) from the U.S. Post Office. CAM 27 connected cities from Chicago, Illinois, to Bay City, Michigan, with service starting July 17, 1928.  On that date, postal authorities, the Ann Arbor Flying Club, Chamber of Commerce members, and several hundred excited spectators were on hand at the new airport to welcome TAC pilot Lester F. Bishop as he landed his plane in Ann Arbor and received a sack of more than 2,000 letters from Postmaster Ambrose C. Pack. Yet another complimentary editorial ran in the newspaper: "...the fact that the service has been extended to Ann Arbor should be a source of gratification for every resident. It is something to which he can "point with pride," as the saying goes."

October 9, 1928 - Ann Arbor's New Airport Is Dedicated

On a sunny morning in October 1928, three P-1 army first pursuit planes from Selfridge Field circled over Ann Arbor. Commanded by Col. Charles H. Danforth, they touched down on the runways near a crowd of over 350 people, commencing the dedication ceremony of the completed Ann Arbor Municipal Airport. They parked near a Ford Tri-motor (affectionately known as a Tin Goose), a Hamilton Metalplane, and two Spartan planes, which were the property of Flo Flying Services.

The invitation to the dedication, published in the newspaper, noted that all were invited, "including women". Flo Flying Services brought in visitors from surrounding towns by plane, while local residents made their way to the festivities down the rough gravel State Street. City and Washtenaw County officials, members of the Ann Arbor Flying Club, Exchange, Rotary, and Kiwanis clubs were all present. Noted guests included the president of the Hamilton Aircraft Company (owner of the aircraft parked outside), Ford Motor Company's advertising manager, the general manager of the Detroit-Cleveland airline, the assistant traffic manager of Thompson Aeronautical Corporation, and a handful of distinguished pilots. Michigan Governor Fred W. Green was invited, but unable to attend. Guests gathered in the new hangar for a noon luncheon program, which opened with an invocation by Rev. Allison Ray Heaps, pastor of Ann Arbor Congregational Church.

Mayor Edward Staebler addressed the crowd with "Plans for the Future", followed by "A Word from the Council" made by Alderman Herbert Slauson. Levi Wines spoke on "Keeping Abreast With the Times", and Jerome Sutherin, of the Thompson Aeronautical Corporation, spoke about Ann Arbor's airmail service. Shirley Smith, secretary and business manager of the University of Michigan, outlined the history of the new airport, including praise for Eli Gallup and Hackley Butler who had originally championed the idea of a local airfield. Beyond the boasting and self-praise, spectators were most thrilled after the luncheon, when masterful Selfridge Field pilots entertained with "air antics" over the airport. 

See For Yourself: Historical Ann Arbor Airport Footage

Ann Arbor History - Aerial Footage of Ann Arbor in the early 1930s, an eight minute video narrated by Al Gallup (son of Eli Gallup), is available on YouTube. If you'd like a glimpse of Leonard Flo in action at the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport, be sure to give it a watch.

Rick Cocco's then-and-now compositions offer a unique look at our city's ever-changing landscape over the past one hundred years. Between 2018 and 2021, Cocco carefully composed his "now" photographs to match their historical counterparts, largely drawn from AADL's online collection of Ann Arbor News negatives.