Homes in 1930s Escanaba

ESCANABA — The final program in the Delta County Historical Society’s 2018 Winter Outreach Series will provide a glimpse of Escanaba as it looked during the Great Depression. On Wednesday, April 25, archives chairwoman Karen Lindquist will show photographs of Escanaba houses taken in the late 1930s.

The two young men who conducted the photographic survey between 1937 and 1939 may have been supported by the federal WPA, and the pictures were originally part of the assessor’s records. The negatives were discarded when they became obsolete. The negatives were donated to the historical society by Attorney Mike Quinn and scanned, without cutting the strips, by Rich Anzalone. Karen Lindquist and Ellie O’Donnell, with assistance from archives committee members Liz Deneau and Marsh Burrows, spent several months identifying over 2,000 of the buildings in the photos.

The program, offered in partnership with the Escanaba Public Library, begins at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers of the Escanaba City Hall. It is free of charge and open to the public.