Beginning our Class Project - I-496

After reading Matt Miller's article, "Looking Back: I-496 Construction: A Complicated Legacy" from the Lansing State Journal, I was able to get a little background information on our class project about the construction of I-496. Miller's article offers two different viewpoints about this event - destruction and a blessing. The article was a great start for information on what we will be focusing on this semester, but I have some questions that hopefully we will be able to answer during our research and proposal.

1. What is the timeline of events? When was it decided that 496 was going to be built? What objections were there?

2. What reasons were given for the need to construct I-496? Pros/Cons?

3. What new neighborhoods did displaced people move to (both White people and African Americans)?

Cherry Hill School

For our first assignment we had to find a local historic site and take a picture of it. I chose the Cherry Hill School in Canton, MI. I didn't know much information about this place which worked out because the other part of the assignment was to come up with some questions that visitors and historians might have about the place.

Some questions that I thought a visitor would ask were:
-When was it built?
-Who built it?
-How many students attended the school and what grades were they in?

Some questions that I thought a historian might ask were:
-Where were the student's families from that attended the school?
-Why did they settle in this area?
-Are there any primary sources available about the people who attended this school?
-Why was this school house preserved?
-Was education as important to the families who lived in the community back then as it is now?
-Did families contribute anything to the school house?

From the sign outside of the school (shown above) I was able to get some basic information about the school house which answered some of my general questions about the place. I thought it was interesting that Henry Ford was involved with this school and paid for improvements. To try and answer some of the questions that I came up with I looked for more information about this school and the area. I found the following website that was very helpful and interesting to read: http://www.cantonhistoricalsociety.org/