This Saturday, June 4th, will be the annual African American Downtown Festival in Ann Arbor! The festival will be a multicultural and multi-generational celebration of African American history in Ann Arbor. The location of the festival (4th and Ann) is significant due to it being the historical epicenter in Ann Arbor of African American owned businesses, culture and family life. Fun times to be had by all!

If you're interested in doing some research into the history of African Americans in Washtenaw County, the AADL has several resources for you:

• A pictorial history titled, "Another Ann Arbor" by Carol Gibson & Lola M. Jones.
• "Unconquered Souls: The History of the African American in Ypsilanti by Albert P. Marshall.
• The documentary "A Woman's Town" (1991) chronicling the history of African American women in Ann Arbor from the mid-nineteenth century to the late nineteenth century.
• Abolitionist history in Ann Arbor with the Signal of Liberty newspaper database
• An AADL Productions Podcast with Lola Jones and Carol Gibson, the founders of the website "Another Ann Arbor" & authors of the book of the same name.

Additional local resources include:

• The African American Cultural and Historical Museum, dedicated to preserving the history and culture of African Americans in Washtenaw County.
• The website and organization, "Another Ann Arbor", created by Lola Jones and Carol Gibson to chronicle African American life in Ann Arbor.
• The Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan has a number of collections dedicated to African American history in Ann Arbor.

runrun

They were a hale and hearty group in 1974 despite being temporarily delayed by a passing train at the first Dexter-Ann Arbor Run. We've gathered together a few articles and pictures from the Ann Arbor News Archives about the Dexter-Ann Arbor Run to jog your memory and get you motivated for this year's race on Sunday, June 5th.

Check out a few items from the archives:

-Article about the first race

-Photo of runners pack in the 1979 Dexter-Ann Arbor Run

-Article about friendly rivalry

…But Are About to Find Out Why is a new book by Martin Woodhouse. The author presents “fascinating tangents and tidbits in purposely random sequence” about the fair city of Ann Arbor. He ups the “quirk quotient” and treats readers to some interesting stories and facts about A2 and some of its story-worthy inhabitants.

Perhaps you’ve read Wicked Washtenaw County, Strange Tales of The Grisly and Unexplained, and are looking for more facts about the area. This book is right up your alley. Also recommended for some local trivia is another new book, Ghostly Tales of Michigan, which shares ghostly tales of some of Michigan’s more ghostly places.

cornfield

A new book arrived in our Local History Collection recently, Brookwater Farm of Webster Township, and in one of those serendipitous moments we're having at the Archives lately, we came across some articles related to the history of the Brookwater Farm.

In 1948, the Ann Arbor News ran a long article, Restoration of Brookwater, complete with a description of the annual livestock auction and historic photos of the farm. The new owner, Lawrence F. Carlton, undertook an extensive restoration of the farm house. However, later articles from 1950 describe the "Corn War", a year-long legal battle with suits and countersuits over 29 acres of corn crop. There's even an article about Mr. Carlton temporarily blinding himself when a tear gas bomb went off as he was showing it to folks.

Photo_contest

We recently posted the winter issue of Ypsilanti Gleanings, the official publication of the Ypsilanti Historical Society. Gleanings offers, on a quarterly basis, a variety of articles, quizzes and miscellany for enthusiasts of Ypsi history. All four 2010 issues are here, with both text and images available for searching and browsing. As a matter of fact, we have the complete text and images of Gleanings dating all the way back to its origins in 1971!

So if you need a good read to keep you enthralled over the holiday break, look no further than the Gleanings corpus where you'll find ghost stories, mysterious abductions, natural disasters, westerns, epic biographies and other fascinating tales of Ypsilanti history.

For those of you who enjoy history with a morbid twist, the AADL now offers Wicked Washtenaw County: Strange Tales of the Grisly and Unexplained. This new collection of short stories from local Ypsilanti historian James Thomas Mann offers up true tales of murder, mystery, grave robbing, scandal, etc. culled from old newspapers of our area. Mann's book is a short, quick read garnished with photos and drawings of the people and places involved. It gives a glimpse into Washtenaw's darker history, like the unsolved 1913 murder of a Chelsea woman who was strangled and found buried under a pile of cornhusks in her barn.

Dexter village

Thanks to local historian Grace Shackman, we've recently added to Ann Arbor Observer: Then & Now dozens of past articles from the Community Observer tracking the histories of our neighboring communities Dexter, Chelsea, Manchester and Saline. Some articles, including one about the origins of area libraries, another on the county's one-room schoolhouses, and a third detailing Christmases past cover the history of the subject in all four locations. You can also read many feature-length articles about the architectural landmarks, businesses and people that characterize the towns, from the Chelsea Private Hospital and the Dexter Underpass to the Manchester Mill and Saline Valley Farms. Grace has also written about the smaller villages of Dixboro and Delhi.

lost cow

The classified ads are a window into what's going on in a community. For instance, even though most of the ads on Ann Arbor Craig's List are about lost pets and used things for sale, a post like this gives us hints to the exciting night life that our town has to offer:

Two dimes and a nickle - found (A2)
Date: 2010-04-16, 1:27PM EDT

I found two dimes and a nickle on the sidewalk in front of the Arena last night. If you
lost two dimes and a nickle please contact me, I would be delighted to return
them to you. Please be prepared to identify said coins.

Well, things were no less different in Ann Arbor in the mid-nineteenth century. Do you know about The Signal of Liberty, Ann Arbor's historic abolitionist newspaper. We have the Signal on our website, and it's a great resource for learning about the history of anti-slavery in this area.

BUT, it also includes many classified ads that offer an intriguing look into what Ann Arborites were up to in the 1840's.

Here's one from the September 22, 1841 issue from Michael Puttel.
eliza
Let's hope that Michael and Eliza patched things up.

These two from July 7th and August 4th seem to be 1841's version of a lost pet ad.
lost cows
Lost mares
How does one lost a cow... or multiple horses? These two ads also contain the recurring offer for a free Signal subscription in return for Wood! Wood! Wood!

This ad, also from July 7th but recurring throughout the paper's run, is here simply to beg one question: What is a "smut machine"?
Threshing machine ad

Founded in 1857, Forest Hill is Ann Arbor's oldest cemetery, rich in history and remarkably colorful this time of year. Indeed, it's a perfect time for an interpretive tour of the graveyard with local historian Wystan Stevens, who leads groups through the grounds with stories of Ann Arbor's history every Sunday from Oct. 4 - Nov. 8 starting at 2pm. Be sure to catch him this time around, for Stevens will end his popular 30 year tradition this year. The tours are $10 for adults and free for children, and they begin at the cemetery gate on Observatory, north of Geddes. Additional information is available at 734.662.5438. For a further glimpse into the lore of Michigan's past, try the books Ann Arbor Area Ghosts, and Ghost Towns of Michigan.

A 90th birthday celebration for the venerable Ann Arbor Farmers' Market is Saturday Aug. 8. Stop by for gelato, music, birthday cake, and kids' activities. Vendors and market goers will tell stories at the Oral History Booth from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. To get excited about market history, see The Farmers’ Market Bounces Back and Reinventing the Farmers' Market in Ann Arbor Observer: Then and Now, a rich collection of more than 100 articles recently archived by AADL.