Ann Arbor is not 200 years old… at least, not exactly… Yes, 2024 does officially mark two centuries of Treetown’s existence as a village, and then a city, as officially declared by the American authorities. But there was a colonial presence here before that. And of course, the Native American history of this place goes back centuries further.
“You are on Ashinabi land,” the central atrium of the University of Michigan Museum of Art reminds you.
The Washtenaw County’s Office of Community and Economic Development has recently launched an interactive map that allows you to use GIS technology to find and learn more about the roads native Michiganders made over centuries, that eventually got made into many of the streets that you and your neighbors use every day. All you have to do once you get to the page is click “layers” and select for Native American resources and Native American trails.
“The program tries to utilize GIS to make historic data modern and useable. The catalyst for incorporating the Native American element is that we noticed in this data is that it is largely architectural – a lot information from the 1840s-ish to present – there was a lack of Native American representation in our database, so we wanted to ensure that they were represented. One of the ways we did that was through old, historic maps of Native American trails throughout of the County and then georectifying that data to our GIS website,” said Kat Slocum, a historic preservation specialist at Washtenaw County’s Office of Community and Economic Development.
Slocum is an archeologist focusing on Native North American history, adding, “Once the information was created, [it] was then shared with Native American groups, including some individuals who do K12 education for Native American children and programming to make that data available, so children can learn about Native American heritage, make sure that the history is accessible for all, and make sure that our rich, deep history in Washtenaw County is equitably distributed.”
You can also take a good look at the first 50 years of Ann Arbor’s official existence as a town settled by the United States as a village, and then city, from 1824 to 1874, at the Museum on Main Street. The house-turned-museum is one of Ann Arbor’s oldest still standing structures. It wasn’t originally at the five points where Main, Kinglsey and Beakes meet north of downtown. It was originally in LowerTown and moved to its final location.
“Raising a village takes pioneers whose stories range from inspiring to mysterious, and heroic to heartbreaking. It takes settlers who build homes, operate farms, raise families and connect with each other to form communities. And it takes home-made items, businesses and occupations that contribute to the quality of everyday life,” the Museum on Main explains on its website.
The University of Michigan
The other big factor in Ann Arbor’s history is obviously the University of Michigan. U of M started off in Detroit as something more resembling a high school in modern definition in Detroit in 1817. Twenty years later, local land developers in Ann Arbor donated 40 acres to the still shinny new-State of Michigan to relocate the reorganized institution to Washtenaw County, U of M explains. According to the university’s website, “the 40 acres we call the Diag – sealed the decision about where the institution would go.”
The Ann Arbor District Library has been very busy celebrating and educating the public about A2s history this year. They have produced no less than 180 podcasts from community memberS documenting Treetown’s history through films and interviews. They even produced a one act play on U of M’s involvement in nuclear weapons development, written by Jim Otaviani.
Football
You can also hardly have a complete Ann Arbor history without football. The Bentley Historical Library documents U of M’s first official football game as happening in 1879, but the game had already been played here before that and had to evolve a bit from its rugby and soccer cousins to become proper football.
There were a series of modest football stadiums before the then-athletic director Fielding Yost led the construction of the Big House, according to the LSA, eventually expanding from a capacity of 87,000 seats to 107,601 today; making it one of the largest athletic venues on Earth.
RELATED: Tree Of Life Statue Celebrates 200 Years of A2
Downtown
Like a lot of college towns, there is a notable distinction between townies and university students – which is always inexact since the nature of being a college student is to be in a town temporarily. But, it used to be so much more so when the original village, centered around Main Street. It used to be physically far away from the Diag – which happens to be where the State Street District put a monument to the city’s bicentenary this year. That changed in 1890 when Ann Arbor’s long-gone streetcar system connected the Village with State Street.
According to the Museum on Main Street website, “Grocers, barbers and tailors served both communities, while billiard parlors, dining halls, bathhouses and bookstores catered to the growing student population. John Nickels Meat Market, added to the front of his home, was one of the early commercial buildings transforming the neighborhood. After 1890 the streetcar linked Main Street and campus, and several downtown businesses added branches here. J. J. Quarry opened a drugstore in his new building at State and North University in 1898. It specialized in supplies for nearby University hospitals and the medical and dental schools, as well as the offices of doctors and dentists over neighboring shops.”
That eventually led to the construction of Nickel’s Arcade in 1917. This beautiful, mosaic-clad, 261 foot long, enclosed alley contains 20 shop spaces and was a precursor to the shopping malls of the mid-century. It was a major part of the fashionable shopping district of the growing city, still kept that way with Bivouac, One DNA, Arcadian Antiques, Mix and Van Boven, and recently, the latest home of town-favorite Elmo’s. The current owner has turned the offices into co-working spaces. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
RELATED: Stop by Elmo’s at Nickels Arcade for Clothing and Gifts
Michigan Theater
Nearby, the Michigan Theater opened in 1928 according to the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. It was built in a Renaissance Revival style and simply never closed in the face of competition from more modern suburban theaters and the streaming era. It is now run by a non-profit, which also owns the Art Deco style State Theater half a block away. The Michigan specializes in art house films, foreign movies, documentaries and streaming cult classics and seasonally appropriate classics such as “The Room” and “The Rocky Horror Picture.”
They also have made Ann Arbor a destination for Avant Garde art with the Ann Arbor Film Festival, a hub of experimental film making that has created room for promising young talent to make a name for themselves. Some of the most influential filmmakers still go through there as a resume building exercise. Sit down in one of the theater seats next year and you might just find yourself witness to history.
RELATED: AAFF Brings Vibrant Global Film Culture to Treetown
Civil rights
History was also made on the civil rights front at U of M. While the cultural transformations on race, gender equality and the emergence of LGBTQ people as a visible part of American culture are all important, the one most visible on campus right now is La Raza show at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. This exhibit shows how Latino, Chicano and Hispanic students starting with the Raza Arts and Media Collective have been contributing to campus since the 1960 and 1970s in Ann Arbor and nationwide, incorporating current students in a direct attempt to reverse cultural erasure, and will be there until next July.
LGBTQ rights also began to sprout in Ann Arbor in the 1960s. The city’s queer friendly reputation was led in no small part by the Aut Bar, which used to be in a collection of mall houses across Fourth Avenue from the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market. It closed in 2020 and the building has since been demolished. Flame Bar was another LGBTQ haunt, closed since 1998.
Modern Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor has substantially gentrified in the last 50 years, and its booming population has also meant that the city has Manhattanized substantially.
One of Ann Arbor’s biggest third rails is the debate over the new high rises. For a very long time, Ann Arbor was a small city with just one skyscraper – Tower Plaza at the corner of Maynard and William. But now that so many more people have moved in – the population has gone from 114,024 in 2000 to 113,934 in 2010 and 123,851 in 2020 according to the Census – can Ann Arbor afford to not have more high rise developments?
Can Ann Arbor afford to not build higher? And can Ann Arbor keep the culture that has kept it vibrant all this time? This article has only skimmed the surface of A2s history and there are a thousand ways the story will turn over the next 200 years. Which way will we turn? Only time will tell.
Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!
