The Traverse Area Historical Society will hold its annual meeting on Sunday, October 25, 2020 at 2:00 PM. The Board of Directors will present on the state of the society and its past activities of 2020 and its future plans. They will also present the Society’s financial picture and proposed 2021 budget.  The Board is seeking member and community input on its activities and ideas for the future. The meeting will conclude with the election of Board members by all members present.  

This event will occur online in a Zoom meeting format with the support of the Traverse Area District Library. Please pre-register for this meeting via following link: https://www.tadl.org/event/traverse-area-historical-society-via-zoom-2/

Enjoy our 2020 August newsletter! Catch up with the Society’s happenings, read an update on preserving the Hitchcock/Goodale Farmhouse foundations, and enjoy a little history (both old and new)!

We’ve also launched the Virtual Oakwood Cemetery Tour on our Facebook page! “Like” our page to be reminded of this special program.

Each day for the next 5 weeks, a new stop on the tour will be posted. COVID may have halted our in-person tour, but here is a different way to “visit” these historic locations. Here’s our post from Day One, August 31st, 2020:

Oakwood Cemetery was established 1861, located on land deeded to the City by James Morgan, a partner with Hannah, Lay & Company. Oakwood replaced the town’s first cemetery, which had opened in 1853. It had been located across Sixth Street from what would later become the Perry Hannah mansion.

Dear Members,

Given the Governor’s Executive orders and local health officials’ guidance, the Traverse Area Historical Society is cancelling our March and April monthly programs and our April Board meeting. Plans for our May events will be shared as we have a better idea of the health situation in the community.

Respectfully,

Stephen Siciliano
President
TAHS

Back by popular demand —

Don’t miss the Traverse Area Historical Society’s February program, Sunday the 16th, 2pm in the McGuire Room at Traverse Area District Library, 610 Woodmere, Traverse City. Our programs at TADL will be held on the third Sunday of every month, February, March, April, May, September, October, and November at 2:00 pm.

TAHS Board Chair, Stephen Siciliano, will be speaking on “Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency Through the Eyes of the Political Cartoonists of His Day.”  If you think Presidents Trump and Obama have been roughly handled by today’s press, you will be amazed by the treatment of the man who we now see as one of our greatest presidents. Siciliano has a PhD in American History from the College of William Mary, where his area of special study was the Civil War.

Original Park Place Hotel, a wooden structure, ca. 1890-1920.

If you have not been to downtown Traverse City lately, you likely have not seen one of our most ambitious projects, the Then & Now Downtown Traverse City local history “points of interest” walk! 10 plaques are scattered in the downtown area, each showing a picture of the area as it was way-back when. Follow this link to learn more about this project, our partners, and to see a map of each location:

https://tcpublicart.org/then-and-now

We hope you will enjoy our latest newsletter! In this issue, read a summary of our impact on regional history in the past year, learn more about a generous donation made by a local entrepreneur, get an update on the work happening at the site of Hitchcock/Goodale Farmhouse foundation along with our committee reports, and read a brief history of Hannah Lay & Co. Mercantile.

Follow the hyperlink below to download the newsletter:

2019 November

The Traverse City Arts Commission is thrilled to announce that the Then & Now project will be installed on October 21st. We invite you to join us for a ribbon cutting on Tuesday, October 22nd at 3:30 pm. Please meet at the DDA Office at 303 E. State St., Ste. C.

The Then & Now project is a series of plaques featuring photos from “then” next to the landscape of “now.” A collaboration between the Traverse Area Historical Society and the Traverse Area District Library helped make the project possible. Then & Now was funded through the Public Art Trust Fund and the Downtown Traverse City Association.

Projects like this, showcasing our area history, is what TAHS is all about. Thank you to our members, who support fantastic works like this to keep our history alive and well.

A special thanks to TAHS director Fred Anderson who saw the project through from concept to completion, and directors Peg Siciliano and Sharon Jennings for their ongoing assistance.

The annual meeting of The Traverse Area Historical Society will be held Saturday, October 19th at 1:00 pm in the McGuire room at the Traverse Area District Library, 610 Woodmere Avene, Traverse City. TAHS members are encouraged to attend and vote in the annual board of directors election.

Who were our Grand Traverse Doughboys who went Over There and never came home? Come hear the stories of some of the nearly ninety men from our region who fought and died in the Great War and whose names are on the World War I marker in our beautiful Veterans Park. Local historian and Interlochen Arts Academy instructor Brian McCall will present this program.