Fowlerville Receives $25K grant for Charlie Gehringer Mural

Fowlerville will recognize a baseball legend through the medium of mural art.

The community received a $25,000 grant from the Consumers Energy Foundation for a mural honoring baseball great Charlie Gehringer.

In March, Fowlerville entered the Consumers' Put Your Town on the Map Competition. The event provides $50,000 in grant funding to support three projects across Michigan. Fowlerville claimed the top prize in the competition: $25,000 for a proposed mural of Gehringer.

Village Manager and Clerk Kathy Rajala-Gutzki told the Livingston Daily that the mural will be painted on the EMS building, next to Centennial Park, where Gehringer played baseball as a child. The Fowlerville Area Fire Department previously owned the building at 200 N. Grand St. before the Livingston County EMS purchased it in 2023.

According to his biography from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Gehringer was born in Fowlerville in 1903. He spent a 19-year career, from 1924 to 1942, in Major League Baseball with the Detroit Tigers as a second baseman.

Gehringer, referred to as "The Mechanical Man," was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1949. He played in more than 2,200 games throughout his career. In 1937, he won the American League batting title and was recognized as the Most Valuable Player, beating out Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio.

Gehringer died on Jan. 21, 1993, in Bloomfield Hills at age 89. His family members still reside in Livingston County.