Traverse City Record-Eagle

Record-Eagle 150th Anniversary

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June 1, 2009

Loraine Anderson: News, community, history

By LORAINE ANDERSON

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150 years of the Record-Eagle on display

Features section editor Jodee Taylor asked me last week what people would learn if they came to the Record-Eagle's exhibit celebrating its 150-year history in Traverse City. It opens today at the Grand Traverse Heritage Center and will run through July.

I stood speechless as 15 decades of life in Traverse City reported by the Record-Eagle and its forerunners scrolled through my head.

"What are your favorite parts?" she tried again.

Where to begin?

The maps and old photos loaned by the Traverse Area Historical Society? The "Germany Licked: War Over" page 1 headlines: "Autocratic Dynasties Crash to Doom." "Kultur Krushed," "City Shouts for Joy"? The printer tools, the two small presses, the ancient typewriters, cameras, photos, historic front pages? The timelines?

I love it all: The history of the paper, its owners, Traverse City and the Grand Traverse region. The history of American journalism, photojournalism, newspaper technology? The wonderful job museum curator Dick Teubert has done putting the exhibit together?

Over the past year, I have fallen in love all over again with the newspaper and community where I have worked and lived more than half my life. I cherish journalism, newspapers, Traverse City and this region.

A strong community newspaper is so many things. It keeps a community informed about its schools, its people, its businesses and important issues. It entertains. It's a community cheerleader. It's a marketplace for readers and a strong advertising vehicle for businesses. It's a watchdog of government. It probes and asks difficult questions. It's a friend, the kind who will tell the truth fairly and as accurately it can with the information it has. It's a forum and part of a community's conscience. It's brave, compassionate and sensitive but can be a bulldog when it comes to protecting public information and free speech rights.

The newspaper also is an important historical daily or weekly record of community life, crucial to local historians and history writers who dig through them, old documents, letters, diaries and pictures to preserve our local story and keep it alive.

After a year of doing that myself for the Record-Eagle's 150-Year History Project, I appreciate more deeply the role of libraries, historical societies, local history museums and heritage centers and their members across our region. They keep us connected today to place, to community, to each other.

Strong communities always have needed that. History is a vibrant living thing. It enriches. It explains. Past events and people do affect the present, just as what we do now affects the future and generations that follow us.

Check out the museum exhibit. I think you'll like it.

Loraine Anderson can be reached at landerson@record-eagle.com or 231-933-1468.

Text Only
  • WILLIAM MILLIKEN
    After looking back, we look to the future

    In this last installment of the Record-Eagle's year-long 150th Anniversary History Project series, native son Bill Milliken ponders the future, including the question: What will the Traverse City area be like in 2159?

    Continued ...
    Nov 8, 2009 7:14 am 9 Photos
  • Derek Bailey: Cooperation is key
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    I am excited and optimistic in thinking about my predictions for the area and Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians for the next 150 years. Clearly, we live in one of the most beautiful areas of Mother Earth. The GTB Tribal Nation has grown exponentially as an area and tribe over the last 29 years. We must now sustain and channel that growth.

    Continued ...
    Nov 8, 2009 7:12 am 1 Photo
  • George McManus: Manage resources
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    The Grand Traverse Region is blessed with abundant renewable natural resources, which properly managed, will remain for the next 150 years and beyond. The community of the future depends on what direction the citizenry and leadership decide to take and external influences over which they have no control.

    Continued ...
    Nov 8, 2009 7:11 am 1 Photo
  • Marsha Smith: Listen to each other
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    The Grand Vision has shown me that the people of this region love it here and have a commitment to building a better future. We care about what happens here and we care about the future. My main concern is that we sometimes forget about all things we hold in common and focus more on what keeps us apart.

    Continued ...
    Nov 8, 2009 7:11 am 1 Photo
  • Joe VanderMeulen: Plan for six generations
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    We need to look forward across six or more generations of people to see 150 years into the future. What wonderful changes there may be, if we choose wisely, just get lucky, or some of both. Of course, we face many threats to our security and survival. The risks of deadly pandemics, global climate change and unimaginable wars are real.

    Continued ...
    Nov 8, 2009 7:10 am 1 Photo
  • November 2, 2009
  • Women helped build Traverse City
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    Women helped build Traverse City's library system, schools and hospital. They lobbied for clean water and clean streets. They were concerned about the needy, child labor, reforestation, international peace and the right of women to vote. They did this largely through two local women's clubs -- the Ladies Library Association and the Traverse City Woman's Club.

    Continued ...
    Nov 2, 2009 6:17 am 4 Photos
  • TC's early women leaders

    Thirteen women who influenced early Traverse City are profiled.

    Continued ...
    Nov 2, 2009 6:15 am
  • October 31, 2009
  • TC history exhibit visits TADL

    The Record-Eagle's traveling exhibit of Traverse City and newspaper history will be on display throughout November at the Traverse Area District Library on Woodmere.

    Continued ...
    Oct 31, 2009 9:30 pm
  • October 19, 2009
  • Loraine Anderson: TC's 1925 earthquake
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    Earthquakes are rare in Michigan, but Traverse City residents definitely felt the earth move beneath their feet and watched electric ceiling lights sway overhead on Feb. 28, 1925. "EARTHQUAKE HERE FIRST EVER FELT: Dishes Rattle, Chairs Rock, Smokers 'Swear Off' and People in High Places Come Down," Record-Eagle headlines shouted after tremors rattled the city at 8:27 p.m. that Saturday night.

    Continued ...
    Oct 19, 2009 7:00 am 1 Photo
  • October 5, 2009
  • Water Wars: Advocating for 'public trust'
    Jim Olson

    It was a busy summer on the water front for Great Lakes advocates in what environmentalists and others are calling "The Water Wars."

    Continued ...
    Oct 5, 2009 6:18 am 3 Photos
  • October 3, 2009
  • R-E editorial decries water diversion

    Record-Eagle concern about Great Lakes water diversion dates to the early 1900s, including a Jan. 14, 1925, editorial about the U.S. governments challenge of Chicagos right to divert Lake Michigan water without consulting its neighbors.

    Continued ...
    Oct 3, 2009 9:55 pm
  • Summary of summer Great Lakes water issues

    Great Lakes water issues this summer included the following.

    Continued ...
    Oct 3, 2009 9:55 pm
  • September 28, 2009
  • 150 Years: Bay served as sewer, water supply
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    The Boardman River in Traverse City wasn't a pretty sight at the turn of the last century. It was a city sewer, and it flowed into West Bay, the source of the city's water supply.

    Continued ...
    Sep 28, 2009 7:18 am 7 Photos
  • August 10, 2009
  • 150 Years: Cartographer maps settlements
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    Helen Hornbeck Tanner, a Beulah summer resident and historian of Great Lakes American Indians and cartography, created a new historical map of the Grand Traverse region that traces early American Indian and white settlement.

    Continued ...
    Aug 10, 2009 6:39 am 2 Photos
  • July 27, 2009
  • Loraine Anderson: Tracking Titus
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    Harold Titus has been one of my favorite Traverse City historical characters since I read "Timber," his 1922 novel, last year. He intrigues me for many reasons. Part of his mystery is that he is virtually unknown today. He is "new" local history.

    Continued ...
    Jul 27, 2009 8:06 am 1 Photo