Quirky notes from August 25, 1881, when town pride and cemeteries sparked lively debate
In the summer of 1881, the Saline Observer found itself locked in a playful back-and-forth with the Milan Sun over a surprisingly touchy subject: who got to call themselves a city. The Observer had casually referred to “this City,” prompting the Sun to fire back with mock horror—“Oh my! We can’t stand it, Mr. Sun, if you will insist upon calling Milan a city, we will be obliged to follow suit.”
Milan, the Observer reminded readers, was technically qualified as a city under Michigan law with its 500-plus residents and a freedom from the “high taxes to support idle charter officers” that afflicted larger places. And if Milan felt tempted to compete, the Observer warned, it should remember the Tenth Commandment, “Thou shalt not covet…”
Of course Milan was a fine place, The Observer wrote—pretty, prosperous, and blessed with coveted railroad connections. But Saline still held one advantage Milan decidedly lacked, that of a cemetery. “Milan never will have such a pretty cemetery as Saline has,” the Observer noted. “In fact Milan has no graveyard at all; nor no materials for one.” The paper morbidly jested, “We don’t want to be obliged to kill some one in order to start one: so Milan must always remain alive.”
While the writer boasted of Saline’s cemetery, a resident elsewhere in the issue scolded the community for letting Union District Cemetery grow over with weeds. If the dead “could speak,” he said, they would surely thank anyone who tidied things up.
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