Traverse Area District Library history

The two moved to different locations, even sharing the same building (though the collections remained separate), before finding a more permanent home on Sixth Street when the Carnegie Library opened in 1905.

Tri-Township Fair, held in Kingsley (Mich.), September 28-30, 1910.

The archives trace their beginnings to Traverse City’s Old Settler’s Association, a social club organized in the 1920’s, by the area’s original white settlers.

The newspapers being nominated were published pre­ 1923, and are therefore in the public domain and cover a large geographic area including Northwestern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, with an emphasis on Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Benzie and Kalkaska Counties.

Since receiving the initial donation of the Pioneer Study Center archives in 1978, the organization (whatever name it was operating under) continued to collect donated materials to improve the archives’ holdings.

The first attempt to pass a millage to fund a new library in 1989 faced so much opposition the idea was tabled.

It wasn’t until 1996 that it passed, leading to the construction of the building on Woodmere.

The two moved to different locations, even sharing the same building (though the collections remained separate), before finding a more permanent home on Sixth Street when the Carnegie Library opened in 1905. Its continued growth led to an expansion, before the new building on Woodmere opened in 1999.

Oral histories collected of area women by the Women's History Project of Northwest Michigan, since the founding of the group in 2000.

In 2005 it moved into state-of-the-art facilities in the newly opened Grand Traverse Heritage Center, located at the renovated Carnegie Library building on Sixth street, the original Traverse City Public Library.

The Society changed its name to the Traverse Area Historical Society in 2008.

By MyNorth News Service on January 12, 2015 Tagged Books, Counties, Give Back, Live Here, Northern Michigan Events, Northern Michigan History, Grand Traverse County, Interlochen, Kingsley, Traverse City

Then and Now Traverse City A self-guided walk for local history created through a partnership with the Traverse City Arts Commission, TC Downtown Development Authority, Traverse Area Historical Society, and Traverse Area District Library, launched in October 2019.