Tarzan's Adventures in.....Coldwater, Michigan?

Maybe the fictional Tarzan wasn't from Michigan, but his creator Edgar Rice Burroughs based some of Tarzan's stories on several Michigan locations...mainly Coldwater.

For over 20 years, Burroughs – from Chicago - would occasionally vacation in Michigan with his wife's family, who owned a summer home in Coldwater. He thought of Coldwater as his “escape”.

In his book “Jungle Tales of Tarzan” (1916), he describes an area that sounds suspiciously like Coldwater. In fact, in one of Burroughs' science fiction books, “Beyond Thirty” (1915), he named the aero-sub the “Coldwater”.

When Burroughs was a kid in the late 1800s, he made his mark as a trouble-maker. He flunked out of college and was sent to military school in Michigan. Violating regulations, thwarting the rules, and thumbing his nose at authority, he was frequently reprimanded and quarantined to his quarters.

Years later when he became an accomplished author, Burroughs used a dealer in Alma for his car repairs and ended up staying 37 days at Morrison Lake's Camp Branch, just north of Coldwater. It was here that he wrote more episodes for Tarzan.

Around 1918 Burroughs moved to California and only made it back to Coldwater one last time in 1919.

Tarzan.....Coldwater.....who woulda thought?