Visit to the Michigan Historical Center

Today we visited the Michigan Historical Center in downtown Lansing, right by the Capitol building. I realized I had been there before and was really excited while walking in past the big tree. But I left a little disappointed. Our presenters did an excellent job, but I thought in going to the Center we would get to check it out a bit, and really we sat in an empty room that resembles a classroom at MSU. I know the State Archivist couldn't be with us as planned, but I just thought we could have made better use of where we were. Even discussing how to build an exhibit in front of an actual exhibit would have been better...

That being said, I did have some new thoughts about our project today. Ted Grevstad-Nordbrock of the State Historic Preservation Office mentioned two mansions that would have ended up on the National Register of Historical Places that would have fallen in the path of I-496: The R.E. Olds Mansion and the Orlando Barnes House. It made me realize that we could maybe appeal to an audience with our project by showing them what history they are missing because of the decisions made in the construction of that highway.  Maybe if we could recreate the history of these mansions in our exhibit we could argue for why Lansing should have tried to preserve parts of this neighborhood and what the public could learn if these buildings had made the National Register.