Windsor's Community Archives

The Border Culture class travelled to the Windsor Public Library's yesterday to view the Windsor Community Archives. Led by archivist Michael Fish, the class saw some of the first maps of the city and aisles of ceiling high shelves containing documents dating to as early as 1804. Pictured above, a photo of the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel dated July 4, 1953.

The Archives are open to the public and contain a staggering amount of documents and photographs (there's over 10,000 photos alone). You can view, copy, and photograph nearly everything with the help of the archivist and since the archive remains largely not-digitized, the archivist can guide you to find the materials you need.

After spending a brief time in the viewing room, we got to move to the back where many of the archives are stored. The entire facility felt like an archive of a functioning public archive, with posters celebrating the importance of the library and the archive from the mid-90s and earlier, the typewriter stationed at a desk in the back, and tables and shelves made of real wood.

Most of the archives were stored in acid-free boxes, but there were many that were lying on shelves, as pictured above, due to the lack of space in the basement. Perhaps most alarming was the actual space in which the archives were contained. Located beside the water main for the building and under a ventilation system (sans filter), the archives seem to be in a precarious position, to say the least.

A close-up of some of those un-boxed documents.

Many of these shelves contain documents that by law have to be in the public archive. City Council minutes dating back to the incorporation of the City of Windsor in 1854. According to the Wikipedia entry on Windsor, citing the Windsor Star, as previously noted by Devon, there was a naming controversy in 1892 for what was then the town of Windsor—among the candidates for the name of our city was South Detroit.

I'm not sure the last time I saw aged paper and a pink eraser.

The storage of what I imagine must be architectural drawings or maps in the Windsor Archives.

Tucked under some bristol board, maps peak out.

Lee asked about the possibility of going through entire boxes (you are allowed to do this).

Archivist Michael Fish, pictured right, points out the concession roads of Windsor to Steve Daigle, on one of the oldest maps of Windsor.

And for your information, pictured above are the hours to access the archive, though Michael did note that you can request materials via email. As well, there are other great (and even larger) archives in Detroit, though other than the University of Michigan, I can't remember where or the names of them. Could someone fill in those gaps in the comments?

It was really incredible to visit this basement in which essentially the entire history of Windsor sits, uninsured. But what do you do with all this material? Where on the city's funding priority list should all of this history sit?