Detroit's Dossin Great Lakes Museum reopens after renovations

The Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Detroit's Belle Isle is shipshape and open for visitors, reopening this past weekend after closing late last year for renovations.

We checked out the museum during the opening weekend to see what's new and what visitor favorites remain part of the museum.

The Dossin re-do, much as the earlier renovation of the Detroit Historical Museum last year, re-imagined the space and the collections with an eye towards increasing opportunities for visitors to interact with exhibits while keeping many visitor favorites intact.

The Dossin looks much the same from the outside as it did several years ago when celebrating its 50th anniversary. You can still see the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie War commemorative cannons and a bow anchor from the Edmund Fitzgerald displayed on the grounds, which is also a great place to watch the big freighters traveling the Great Lakes.

Stained glass in the Gothic Room, photo courtesy of Tim Marks, © 2013, all rights reserved, used with permission

Visitor favorites like the full-sized pilothouse from the William Clay Ford, the restored Gothic Room smoking lounge from a Great Lakes cruise ship named the S.S. City of Detroit III, the championship Miss Pepsi hydroplane raced by the Dossin family in the 1950s and a river cam to keep track the comings and goings of freighters in the area still remain in place at the museum.

View of the Detroit River from the pilothouse

The biggest changes came with decisions to swap out some of the more static displays like the museum's large collection of ship models for more interactive exhibits where visitors can get into the driver's seat of a speed boat, learn to tie knots, figure out how to balance and load freight into a vessel, hear boat signals and share their memories of the legendary Bob-Lo boat cruises and amusement park.

There were still a few of the museum's impressive scale-model ships on display, and we've heard that museum officials plan to display many of them on a rotating basis at the Dossin.

We enjoyed short films in the museum's new Oliver Dewey Marcks Theater about Great Lakes freighters and the history of Detroit's Belle Isle Park. The theater, which seats about a dozen people, resembles the cargo hold of a Great Lakes freighter.

We also saw a painting of the Battle of Lake Erie by Carleton T. Chapman in 1923-1924 as one of a group displayed above the Grand Staircase aboard the passenger steamships Greater Detroit and Greater Buffalo, the largest side-wheelers built in America.

Regular hours for the museum resume on May 25, 2013, although the museum will close during the Grand Prix race on June 1-2 and during the Orion Music Festival on June 8-9.

Regular museum hours are 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

For more about the museum, see my stories Great Lakes maritime lore live on at Detroit's Dossin Great Lakes Museum and Detroit's Dossin Great Lakes Museum celebrates 50th anniversary.

Learn more about Bob-Lo by checking out Summer Dreams: The Story of Bob-lo Island by Patrick Livingston and hydroplane racing on the Detroit River by checking out Hydroplane Racing in Detroit: 1946-2008 by David D. Williams and the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum. The book Forgotten Landmarks of Detroit by Dan Austin has a chapter about the fleet of cruise ships that included the S. S. City of Detroit III with photos and information about the opulent Gothic Room and its removal to the Dossin Great Lakes Museum.

© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved

Comments

[Randy]

Glad to see this update. I see it regularly from across the river. I'll enjoy seeing the changes inside.

[Dominique King]

Thanks for stopping by, Randy. I think my favorite new addition is the "speedboat". It was fun watching kids take the wheel and "drive" the boat!

[Nathan Depetris]

I'm glad to see that the museum has reopened. I've tried to visit several times and each time it was closed for a number of reasons, maybe on my next trip I'll finally get to see it.

[Dominique King]

Nathan-
The weekend-only hours don't help I suppose, and the fact that they'll be closed the first two weekends in June because of the race and the music festival is unfortunate...but it's a nice little museum and worth the visit. It's particularly nice as a place to watch for freighters along the river, too.