How Michigan Became An Eastern Time Zone State

Believe it or not, Michigan wasn't always in the Eastern Time Zone and was instead entirely in the Central Time Zone(CST). Now for most people, this doesn't seem like a big deal as CST is only an hour behind EST, but the big change was Daylight Savings Time(DST). As we know now, not every state chooses to observe DST so that changes the time differences are in between states at different times of the year.

Michigan didn't always observe DST, as they were in CST with Chicago but many businessmen decided that this wasn't suitable for them. They felt they were an hour behind everything since they weren't in the same time zone as New York and didn't have as much daytime as they did. Everything started with Detroit before nearby cities like Ann Arbor and Flint joined in. Eventually, the entire state followed suit to lead us to the present.

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Below is a Tiktok video posted by a user(Dearbornhistoricalmuseum) explaining in detail how Michigan ended up in the Eastern Standard Time Zone and how Daylights Savings Time worked in the state's favor.

@dearbornhistoricalmuseum#Detroit dragged #Michigan kicking and screaming into its modern #timezone. #michiganhistory♬ Elevator Music - Bohoman