The Ann Arbor area is blessed with great, public collections of local historical artifacts, such as the Washtenaw County Historical Society, the U-M’s Bentley Historical Library, and the Ann Arbor District Library’s archives.

But many important artifacts are still dispersed within the community and beyond. As Ann Arbor celebrates its bicentennial, the Ann Arbor Observer is working with the AADL to expand its digital archive of local history.

If you have a historical picture or object that would be of interest to our community, please let us know. The library will digitally document interesting submissions, and the Observer plans to write an article about them.

To share your piece of local history, just email a picture or description to history@aaobserver.com. (If you don’t have access to email, ask a friend or family member to do it for you.)

As part of this project, local historians and archivists were asked what they would most like to find. Their wishes are wide ranging:

Photos:

  • Photos of small businesses. They were important to their neighborhoods but the Ann Arbor News (the source of the bulk of Ann Arbor’s photo record) often did not have a reason to document them. Photos or blueprints of interiors of these businesses would be especially interesting. Examples include Diroff’s Market (a grocery store where Zingerman’s Deli is now), Midway Lunch (a Black-owned restaurant on Ann St.), Hangsterfer’s Confectionery, Wahr’s bookstore, and Miller’s Ice Cream.
  • Photos and memorabilia from old restaurants, such as the Golden Falcon (314 S. Fourth), the Allenel Hotel restaurant, the Town House Hotel, and the Royal Café.
  • Photos of the interior of the 1878 courthouse and of the Michigan Central Depot when they were new.
  • A photo of judge Edwin and Sybil Lawrence’s house on the northeast corner of Division and E. Kingsley. Ralph Waldo Emerson spent a night there on a lecture tour in 1860, but it was torn down in 1903.
  • Photos documenting whole street blocks in and around downtown Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti.
  • Photos or drawings inside & outside Ann Arbor’s or Ypsi’s LGBTQ+ bars and spaces dating back to the 1950s.
  • Photos of celebrities visiting Ann Arbor, such as Sarah Bernhardt, Chet Baker, Elvis, Teddy Roosevelt, and Andy Warhol.
  • Photos or memorabilia from Ann Arbor’s 1924 centennial.
  • Photos, postcards, or blueprints of old/historic buildings that are gone, e.g. Waterman Gym, Hill’s Opera House, the Majestic Theater, the Orpheum, the original boat livery, the old U-M Museum building, Willow Run, and Willow Village.
  • Photos of Ozone parades.

Objects:

  • Old scrapbooks, newspaper articles, diaries, maps, documents, and family letters related to Ann Arbor life.
  • Company employee uniforms and memorabilia from local businesses that no longer exist.
  • The four statues of Justice that stood atop the 1878 courthouse that was demolished in the 1950s.
  • One of Ann Arbor’s distinctive manhole covers or storm drain inlets that were made by the Ann Arbor Foundry.
  • A copy of the Michigan Age, a monthly publication written for the African American community a century ago.
  • The words to or recordings of school songs from now-gone schools such as Jones School.
  • Bound volumes of any local newspaper or magazine for donation to the AADL or the Bentley. These are often the only complete copies of these publications, and when they are gone it is a big loss, even if they were previously microfilmed.

What history have you got? We look forward to seeing it. Here again is how to let us know: history@aaobserver.com.