Silks like this one were inserted as souvenir premiums in early cigarette packages. Sometimes the smoker's sweetheart would sew a dozen or more together, to make a decorative cover for a throw pillow.

(The founding date of the U of M, given as 1837 on the seal reproduced here, in 1929 was corrected to 1817, the date of the progenitor institution's founding in the city of Detroit, in Michigan Territory.)

Submitted by Wystan Stevens

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Beta Theta Pi house, State Street at Monroe (SW corner).

Submitted by Wystan Stevens

Submitted by Wystan Stevens:

An amazing fact: they check your guns when you arrive in Ann Arbor!

The following report, which I have transcribed in its entirety, is a letter from a traveler in Michigan, first published in 1835 in a tabloid: the New-York Mirror, A Weekly Journal, Devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts. Vol. XIII, No. 4, Saturday, July 25, 1835.

[My copy was purchased on eBay, in September, 2007.]

ORIGINAL LETTERS FROM THE WEST.
MICHIGAN.

IT is a marvelous country, this western world, and it is the only land under the sun that has not been too extravagantly spoken of by travellers. Yes, it keeps pace even with travellers' tales, and that is no small merit.

Mr. Hoffman's delightful volumes, and Washington Irving's "Tour," displayed to us a new world; the former spread before us a land shrouded in the mantle of winter, while the latter portrayed the "sere and yellow leaf" of autumn. But the spring and the summer are the boast of prairie land, and he that fails to see those seasons, loses half the pleasure of a trip to the west.

It was on a clear evening in "the leafy month of June," that I set forth from Detroit, late the outpost of civilization, but now called at the place whence I write, "down east." I had come from Buffalo to that city in company with a crowd of grave personages on a disinterested pilgrimage to Chicago, in search of the Golden Fleece, and was glad to take leave of these modern Jasons, and wish them a safe voyage on this new Argonautick expedition. For my own part, I found the steamboat intolerable, especially as a vehement sea-sickness prevented me from "getting my money's-worth" out of the worthy proprietors. I therefore provided myself with a little French pony, and resolved to set forth across the country in quest of adventures and pleasure. After riding nearly all the ponies in Detroit within an ace of their lives, by way of trying, (to the great perturbation of the several owners,) I finally pitched upon a little fellow that racked and paced and cantered to a charm. Having accoutered myself with a broad-brimmed straw hat, a pair of saddle-bags and a blanket, and slung my double-barrelled fowling-piece athwart my back, my pony soon ambled with me out of the busy town. How gloriously independent does a man feel at such a moment! In what supreme contempt does he hold the artificial life of a city, the cares, the bustle and the money-making of life! No matter who he be -- be he as poor as Job, ay, and as friendless too, his soul soars above the little world, he feels his value as a man, he recognises his personal sovereignty, his self-dependence, his native dignity, and with the poet he can feel that,

"Lord of himself, but not of lands,
He having nothing, yet hath all."

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Other images of early Washtenaw County bank notes are available here

submitted by Wystan Stevens

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The University of Michigan was featured in the September, 1941, issue of Ford News, a magazine which was sent to dealers and buyers of Ford automobiles. The striking cover photo, in color, shows several U-M scholars on the front steps of Angell Hall, where they appear dwarfed by the massive neoclassical columns.

Submitted by Wystan Stevens

Ann Arbor Fire Department's John-Bean fog truck illustrated in 1955 magazine advertisement. Also shown is the ivy-covered dining hall of the University of Michigan Law Quadrangle.

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Submitted by Wystan Stevens

An advertisement from the August, 1912, issue of Threshermen's Review
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submitted by Wystan Stevens

image from the Downtown Historical Street Exhibits Program online.

from the Ann Arbor Daily Argus, Tuesday, January 5, 1904

"The Fire Yesterday Could Not be Subdued"

LOSS NEARLY $50,000

Property Insured in Six Companies for $32,000 -- Origin of the Fire a Mystery

The Argo mill, which caught fire at 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon, burned to the ground, causing a loss of nearly $50,000. Insurance to the amount of $32,000 is carried in six milling companies, but this amount includes the grist mill and 9,000-bushel elevator, valued at about $4,500, which were saved.

The fire broke out in the roller room and was discovered by head Miller Sherk and his assistant, H. F. Wolf, who had been in the room only a few moments before, when everything was all right. An alarm was turned in at once, but the flames spread with almost incomprehensible rapidity and by the time the fire department arrived the entire interior of the building was a raging furnace.

It was very evident that the building was doomed and the department devoted their energies to saving the grist mill and elevator and three cars of grain that stood on a siding.

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image from the Making of Ann Arbor Postcard collection.

Text from the Ann Arbor Daily Argus, vol. 6, no. 26, Monday, January 4, 1904

"As we go to press the Argo Mills situated on the foot of Broadway street are on fire and the mill proper will undoubtedly be a total loss.

The fire appears to have originated in the room in which is located the roller machine used for grinding and was discovered shortly after three o'clock, by Head Miller Church and his assistant, H. F. Wolfe. Mr. Wolfe was in the room just before three o'clock [p.m.] and there were no signs of fire, but when he returned to the room at 3:05 it was all ablaze. The alarm was given and the department responded promptly, but it was soon discovered that the mill was doomed and the efforts of the firemen were directed to saving the elevator which adjoins the mill."

Take a closer look at the image above, a postcard of the mill prior to the fire, in the Making of Ann Arbor Postcard collection.

submitted by Wystan Stevens

I don't think we should assume a connection between the Art Fair Antique Show on North U and the one that began at the Farmer's Market on Sundays, but quickly got too big (and caused neighbors of the market to complain about the lack of parking) and moved to the Saline Farm Council Grounds, where it became a phenomenon. The Farmers' Market-cum- Saline show was begun by Margaret Brusher, who had got her start as the impresario of the Good Samaritans' Antique Show, an annual nonprofit event, staged by Catholic women to fund Catholic Social Services and other charities. The Good Sams show was a fancy event with ritzy dealers from New York, Florida and California, which set up in the ballroom of a hotel on the south end of Ann Arbor.

submitted by Wystan Stevens

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