[tz] DST was probably observed in Detroit in 1968

[Steffen Thorsen]

It looks like the database has incorrect time for Zone America/Detroit
during 1968.

In Shanks it is standard time through all of 1968 (and that is also given
in the database), but newspaper articles from that same year seem to
contradict that.

Basically, it seems that Michigan did observe DST the same dates as the
rest of the US in 1968. (Maybe with the exception of Berrien county,
I have not investigated this exception further since it is before 1970).

One source is the Daily Globe, Friday, November 1, 1968 (in Ironwood,
Michigan), it has an article written by the AP:
(page 14, "Confusion Abounds Over Simple Daylight Time Vote"):

Relevant quote from that article:
"as a result Michigan has gone on savings time this summer and last."

Longer excerpt telling more about the background:

The Federal Uniform Time
Act of 1966 gave any state permission
to exempt itself from
fast time if it acted before April
29, 1967, using its normal legislative
process to enact an exemption
law.

Michigan did that. In 1967 the
Legislature approved and Gov.
George Romney signed a bill
providing that all of Michigan
would remain year around on
Eastern Standard Time, as most
of it had since the 1940s.

The Citizens Research Council
of Michigan says Hawaii was
the only other state to pass
such an exemption, although
Kentucky and Alaska were
granted temporary exemptions.

Backers of savings time, however,
circulated referendum petitions
challenging the exemption
law and succeeded in putting
it on the ballot. Then: success
suspended the law, and as
a result Michigan has gone on
savings time this summer and
last.

Snarled up with the Daylight
Tune issue is another section of
the Uniform Time Act which put
all of Michigan's Lower Peninsula
on Eastern Time and the
entire Upper Peninsula on Central
Time.

The two eastern counties of
the U.P. have ignored the law
and observe Eastern Standard
and Eastern Daylight Time like
the Lower Peninsula.

Best regards,
Steffen Thorsen - timeanddate.com