Historical Museum digitizes photo collection

For the past year or so we have been working hard at the museum to digitize our collections and get them online for all to see. So far we have scanned in over 15,000 photographs, slides, negatives and digital images. Many of these images have never been seen before and show unique views of Wayne life, some dating back to WW1 or before. We have also been converting old VHS tapes and DVDs to digital and uploading them to our Youtube Channel, “Wayne Historical Society”. On there you can see old council meetings, lectures, events and Wayne celebrations. While we have a very active facebook page where we often post pictures, not everybody has a facebook account, so not everybody can enjoy them.
We have decided to invest in an online program called CatalogIt which lets us upload pictures, files and data and makes them accessible to everyone for free. Our page on CatalogIt has about 1,500 images on it so far, as it is time consuming to add all the data to make it searchable, but there is a good amount to look through.
Scan the QR codes here to access our Youtube channel and our CatalogIt page and start surfing Wayne history from your smartphone. If you dont have a smartphone, on Youtube just search “Wayne Historical Society”, and on https://hub.catalogit.app search “Wayne Historical Museum” to find us. In total we probably have over 30,000 pictures and 10,000 objects to scan and photograph, so if you’re interested in helping us out, or just want to come for a visit, remember the museum is open Wednesdays and Thursdays 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.

CatalogIt

Youtube

Roads and their names continued:
When Wayne was laid out in 1836 by Joshua Howard and Rufus Brown it was laid out with seven streets and a town square. The streets were Jones, Kercheval, Norris, Brush, Newberry, Biddle and Hastings. Now some of these names we still know today, but some have been changed: Jones is now Park street, Kercheval is Main street, Norris is Michigan Avenue EB, and Hastings is now Wayne Road. What is interesting is that the original seven names are the last names of the officers of the Michigan Central Railroad in 1835. DeGarmo Jones, Benjamin Kercheval, Mark Norris, Edward Brush, Oliver Newberry, John Biddle, and Eurotas Hastings. Apparently naming the roads after them was a kind of ‘Thank you” to the board for bringing the railroad through Wayne, which it did in 1838. Elizabeth Street is named after Elizabeth Swift Chase (1811-1880) whose husband Andrew Chase platted out that area of town, they were influential in the Methodist Church. Clark is named for James Clark who owned 40 acres on the north side of Michigan right around the Old Cemetery. Sims is named for Samuel Sims (1807-1888) a Nankin Township farmer from England that lived in what is today Inkster.
Howe Road is named for Philetus Howe who owned a 40 acre farm on the east side of Howe just south of the railroad tracks, they came to Wayne from Ohio in 1850. Hubbard is likely named for Homer Hubbard (1875-1942) who was a local coal delivery man.