APRIL 19 ISSUE ANSWERS: Last week included the 1859 business wall map of Macomb and St. Clair Counties. The Romeo Historical Society had it restored thanks to the donations of local citizens. It lists the businesses and occupations of residents. Detailed lists indicate the number and locations of blacksmiths, lawyers, furniture makers and all the other occupations in Macomb County. Since most people were farmers, they were not listed. By comparing each village and town’s occupations one can see which town was developing earliest. In 1992, Heidi Beringer Wenrick, in her first year of college decided to compare the information on the map with the data listed on the 1875 Macomb County Atlas. She entered all occupations by town for 1859 and 1875 on a computer. The farmers were not included. The computer then generated two sets of vertical bar graphs (see above.) The graphs show some very interesting stories about Romeo’s early development. The second from the bottom part of the graph indicates manufacturing. When you compare Mount Clemens to Romeo, you see that Romeo out-manufactured Mount Clemens by six to seven times. None of the other towns in Macomb County even came close. Washington Township matched Mount Clemens. When you look at the 1875 data, you can see that all of the other Macomb County towns grew rapidly and started passing up Romeo in terms of manufacturing. The data indicates that Romeo was an early leader. R. Beringer, Romeo Historical Society staff