Top stories at Midwest Guest, 2012

It's always fun to take a look at the top stories at Midwest Guest and how that list does, or doesn't, change over the years.

Here, in order, are the nine most-visited links at Midwest Guest in 2012:

1. Visit the Fiesta factory in Newell, West Virginia (originally published August 9, 2011)-I've always loved Fiesta dishes, and this is the story about our visit to the Homer Laughlin Company factory store in West Virginia. It's also a brief history of the company and the nineteenth-century pottery industry centered just across the Ohio River in East Liverpool, Ohio.
   
   
2. Photo Friday: The Thinker ponders life in Detroit (originally published April 9, 2010)-A photo feature about a cast of Rodin's statue, The Thinker, that became one of the best-known icons of a city once known as the Paris of the West. Today, the statue sits proudly in front of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
3. Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive at Michigan's Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (originally published March 25, 2010)-I've done many stories about the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, and this feature about a scenic drive featuring sweeping views of the dunes, Lake Michigan, Glen Lake and the Manitou Islands seems to draw a lot of traffic especially as the summer months arrive and people begin planning trips Up North.
4. Photo Friday: Motown remembers Michael Jackson (originally published July 31, 2009)-I wrote this story about a unique Detroit memorial to the multi-talented entertainer shortly after his death in July of 2009. Even as Jackson has been gone for more than three years, interest in this story remains strong.
5. Indiana in a jar, Sechler's Pickles factory store (originally published April 30, 2009)-This story of one of our accidental discoveries along the highway in northern Indiana held the top spot for most-visited link at Midwest Guest for a couple of years after I wrote it. I'm not sure about the fascination with pickles, but I found the store pretty much the same when we visited there and replenished our supply of Sechler's Pickles a couple of months ago.
6. Chicago's Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows (originally published December 17, 2009)-This was another accidental discovery we made when we visited Chicago's Navy Pier. Fans of art and Chicago's rich architectural history will find this museum tucked away between concessions, rides and boat docks along the pier worth seeking out.
   
   
7. Indiana's University of Notre Dame embraces "Touchdown Jesus" (originally published November 23, 2010)-This is one of the Notre Dame campus' most iconic sites for football fans and fans of the school's great architecture and art. The mosaic of Christ earned its nickname because of its location on the wall directly behind the north end zone of the university's football stadium and the figure's upraised arms, reminiscent of a referee's signal for a touchdown. I also discovered that the artist who created the mosaic created a well-known mosaic in Detroit as well.
8. Seven sensational Great Lakes National Parks (originally published April 28, 2009)-This post lists some of the Great Lakes' most beautiful and interesting National Parks.
9. Ghosts of Punderson Manor (originally published October 28, 2008)-This story is one of my earliest posts at Midwest Guest, but it remains one of my most popular posts over the years. It still draws the occasional comment from readers relating their own paranormal Punderson experiences. Punderson was also the subject of my first post at the Ohio Tourism Division's Discovering Ohio blog (published in August of 2001), where it still draws the occasional comment from readers about their own strange and unexplained experiences at the Manor.

Stories usually take a year or so the garner the cumulative traffic that puts them on my top traffic list, but here is my most visited story written and published this year.

War Dog Tribute stands tall in South Lyon, Michigan (originally published March 29, 2012)-This, like a lot of my favorite stories, came about when we stumbled across something unexpectedly in our travels. This story tell the tale of a unique memorial in metro Detroit honors some of the most unsung war heroes in our country and the volunteers working to restore and respectfully maintain the site to help preserve those stories.

© Dominique King 2012 All rights reserved