The Clare Co. Historical Society Needs Your Tweet!

Thanks to the efforts of Andy Coulson of the Clare County Historical Society the Marion Press is a grant finalist in the Digital Michigan Newspaper Grant Program at the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.

The grant awards funds to scan newsprint pages and place online or scan previously microfilmed newspaper for placement online.

This grant is made possible by the Robert and Susan Clarke Endowment with additional funding provided in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library of Michigan.

The newspaper database at the Clarke is available online at https://digmichnews.cmich.edu/

A large majority of Clare County newspapers are already digitized. About 28 years (1,409 issues) of the Cleaver are currently digitized and searchable on the site and another 50 years will be digitized in the coming years. If you have pre-1930 copies of the Cleaver, please share them with us so they can be scanned and included in the collection.

Why is Marion important to the Clare County Historical Society? There is an historical void in the northwestern portion of Clare County.  News of communities like Temple, Clarence, Pennocks, Leota, Upton, Floodwood,        Grandon, Winterfield, and Austa were in the Marion Press.

Most of these communities were big enough to support a post office, church and schools, and there were easily just as many smaller communities that may have been writing their news items into the Marion newspapers.