A history of Ann Arbor,
since 1824
Postcards, papers and photographs of Ann Arbor from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗The region was once inhabited by several Native American tribes, the most prominent being the Anishinaabe people of the Three Fires: the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi. The Potawatomi founded two villages in the area of what is now Ann Arbor in about 1774. Other tribes that inhabited the area included the Wyandots and Sauk. These peoples established several trails that converged on present-day Ann Arbor. The land that included Washtenaw County was ceded to the U.S. by the Odawa, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Wyandot in the Treaty of Detroit of 1807.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Ann Arbor’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewAnti-Semitic advertisement in the…, 1851: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Ann Arbor
See all 49 →
Ann Arbor, decade by decade
1990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Anti-Semitic advertisement in the Michigan Argus (1851) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Historic places
National Register · via Wikidata
From Wikimedia Commons (2), the Library of Congress (4) and the National Register (6). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.