A narrative history of Ann Arbor's transformation from frontier community to world-renowned center for learning and research

Ann Arbor has seen many cherished landmarks and institutions come and go - some fondly remembered and others lost to time. When the city was little more than a village in the wilderness, its first school stood on the now busy corner of Main and Ann. Stores like Bach & Abel's and Dean & Co. served local needs as the village grew into a small town. As the town became a thriving city, Drake's and Maude's fed generations of hungry diners, and Fiegel's clothed father and son alike. Residents passed their time seeing movies at the Majestic or watching parades go down Main Street. Join authors Patti F. Smith and Britain Woodman on a tour of the city's past.

Ann Arbor might have become just another small Michigan village had it not been for one crucial event: its designation as the home of the University of Michigan in 1837. Its subsequent development into a thriving cultural and intellectual community was marked by its extraordinary architecture, from the grand 1878 courthouse to the exquisite original university buildings and fashionable East Huron Street. The expansion of the town and university, the arrival of the automobile, and frequent fires began atransformation of Ann Arbor that led to the tragic demolition of some of its most remarkable structures. Lost Ann Arbor is a tribute to these long-lost treasures and the 19th century way of life that accompanied them.

Founded in Detroit, Michigan, in 1817 as one of the first public universities in the nation, the University of Michigan moved to Ann Arbor in 1837. What started as a forty-acre campus with four buildings, expanded over the next 170 years to become a university with four campuses: Central, Athletic, Medical and North. It has become one of the most distinguished universities in the world. Historic Photos of the University of Michigan depicts the unfolding history of the college in Ann Arbor from its early stages in the 1850s to its more modern self of the late 1970s. Exceptional black and white images of the campus and surrounding area, selected from the Bentley Historical Library's extensive collection, provide a taste of campus life while taking readers through the evolution of buildings, the beginning of an athletic legend, and the historic events that united the campus with a community. These photographs many rarely seen portray the richness that forms the proud history of the University of Michigan.