During the past few years Detroit has built up a name as a convention city, delegates coming from hundreds of miles, manufacturers holding their yearly consultations around our hotels, and all without any effort on the part of the citizens, or any special attention paid to them after they got here. They have simply come to Detroit because they wanted to….Can Detroit by making an effort, this year secure the holding of 200 or 300 of these national conventions during the year of ’97. It will mean the bringing here of thousands and thousands of men from every city in the union…and they will expend millions of dollars with the merchants and the people of the City of the Straits” (Carmichael, 1896, p.1).