The Nankin Township Historical Society

While national politics lead us away from our lives and towards war, local politics generally fortify us despite the divisions in philosophy, or so we'd like to think. Which is why I've long been enamored with local history over national and global histories. All are important but the local is severely undervalued and largely ignored. "Oh, Ypsi girls are very fine girls, With codfish balls they comb their curls." Gundella's connections to Marcello Truzzi, EMU professor and sc holar, have piqued my interest in Ypsilanti and the university in its many permutations.  While looking for information on the Michigan State Normal College News from the late 1800s I found this interesting spat between coeds from that institution and "Michigan Men" from 1940. An article in the Michigan Daily , a student newspaper, claiming that the girls of Normal College weren't as pretty as they used to be sent a throng of coeds to Angell Hall in a bus to protest the ...

This 112-year-old real photo post card of Ira F. Johnson's homestead in Romulus is for sale currently for $30. Were it a modest price I'd have already purchased it but I can just lift the picture and pretend that I own it instead. Detroit Free Press, March 7, 1938 I'm envious of Mr. Johnson for two reasons: because of his glorious house and the fact that he owned a newspaper, The Romulus Roman among his other occupations which included notary public and deputy sheriff. All at the age of 74 to boot. Detroit Free Press , June 7, 1940 He was also active in a group called the Three Score and Ten Michiganders . They were native Michiganders who were septuagenarians or older, still lived in state and had no criminal record. Meetings were held on the first Thursday of each month where cards, music and games were played. Their June 7, 1940 meeting was at the Palmer Park Casino. Members included Charles C. Brewe, M. W. Scott, John A. Williams, Edward H. Maske and, of course, John...

Detroit News ?, June, 1940 What's outside the purview of Nankin? Not Belleville or any municipality touching the border of a border town of Nankin or the township which formed from its original fracturing. So basically Wayne County and then some. Since I don't really know anything about Belleville I'll let the article concerning the origins of some main roads and streets to this newspaper article from 1940. Which I believe was from The Detroit News but definitely came in a packet of paper ephemera from a Dearborn estate sale several years ago. Some of the street, family and other names and entities mentioned in the article include Liberty Street, Main Street, Church Street, Charles Street, Henry Davis, William Brain, Henry Street, Davis Street, Savage Road, Huron River Drive, Wayne County Road Commission, Clark-Diggs Road, Columbia Avenue, Sustera Lake, River Road.