Loraine Anderson: Artist pays homage

Loraine Anderson

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David Kirby with his Perry Hannah bust and narrative plaque now on long-term loan at the Traverse Area District Library. Courtesy of David Kirby
Loraine Anderson

February 14, 2011

By LORAINE ANDERSON Local columnist The Record Eagle Mon Feb 14, 2011, 07:51 AM EST

In 2003, high school science teacher and artist David Kirby created and installed a solar system along a five-mile section of TART. Now he's delivered something more down-to-earth: a bronzed bust of lumber baron and city father Perry Hannah.

Kirby installed the bust and accompanying 36-by-40 narrative plaque last week as a long-term loan to the Woodmere branch of the Traverse City Area District Library.

Perry's new digs are in an alcove in the genealogy section on the second floor. If you look out a nearby window, you can see neighboring Hull Park and Boardman Lake, once lined with logs and wood lots of the Oval Wood Dish Co. You also can see a yellow sun and its flaring metallic rays atop a light pole. It is the first station of Kirby's scale-model Traverse Bay Community Solar System. Pluto is five miles east, near Bunker Hill Road.

Perry isn't as big as a solar system, but Kirby's enthusiasm for our town father is. He thinks Hannah's leadership, character, philanthropy and vision helped Traverse City become the vibrant city it is today.

He made the bust and plaque because he thinks Hannah deserves one. As far as he knows, there are no statues or monuments honoring Hannah, who with city co-founder A. Tracy Lay, started the Hannah, Lay & Co. here in 1851.

The plaque chronicles Hannah's contributions and lasting influence. He lobbied for the first state road in 1863 and the city's first railroad in 1872. He donated land for local government buildings, schools, churches and synagogue. He worked hard to ensure the Northern Michigan Asylum was built in Traverse City. He helped several young entrepreneurs set up businesses that competed with his.

The sculpture project cost Kirby "a few hundred dollars." The National Honor Society at West chipped in $150, but most came out of his pocket.

A quote from Perry Hannah made a few years before his death in 1904 lines the edges of the plaque:

"If I should be allowed to remain here another half-century, then fly way to the spirit world, I am certain I should be watching Traverse City grow, and wishing to know that its people were prosperous, happy and contented."

A self-professed "history geek," Kirby's interest in the town father began years ago while researching the title of his own home in Elmwood Township and learning that Hannah's son, Julius, and other prominent city leaders and businessmen of the late 1800s and early 1900s had built a close-knit group of summer cottages nearby. Among them were Oval Wood Dish associates Henry Hull and J.M. Longnecker and Henry D. Campbell, who started the city's first stagecoach company, water works, electric plant and built what later became the first Park Place Hotel.

"I just love the thought that these guys, including Perry, I bet, hung out in my front yard," Kirby said.

I think Perry, if he is looking on, would like David Kirby, TADL, Hull Park, the solar system and the National Honor Society.