Images for the Everyman
Images for the Everyman
New picture book released on Houghton County
| CAPTION: Photo Jane Nordberg Author and Houghton County Historical Society president Richard Taylor peruses a Polk directory in the society’s Perl Merrill Resource Library at the society complex in Lake Linden. |
By JANE NORDBERG, DMG Writer
LAKE LINDEN — His name may be on the book, but Richard Taylor emphasizes that his new book, “Images of America: Houghton County 1870-1920,” was a culmination of efforts.
Begun last December, the work was released in late July through Arcadia Publishing of South Carolina. Taylor plans to donate all proceeds of royalties to the Houghton County Historical Society, where he did the bulk of his research.
“The material resources here are wonderful, I don’t think most people realize that,” Taylor said Tuesday from the Perl Merrill Resource Center on the Houghton County Historical Society Museum Complex in Lake Linden.
Taylor said he employed both secondary sources and primary sources, such as Polk directories, to research the county’s early years.
A board member for nine years and the society’s president for the last five, Taylor said even he was surprised by the organization’s archival holdings.
“The quality of the photographs we have is great,” he said, pointing to a photograph of miners attempting to free mass copper at Mesnard, heavily annotated by Society co-founder John W. Forster in 1862. Forster’s handwritten notes around the photograph indicate that “a Cornish miner ... ruptured a blood vessel” on the mass and died.
Forster, a mine superintendent, state senator and chief engineer of the Portage Ship Canal, donated much of the society’s current holdings, and is the namesake for the current society’s Forster Press.
“Through writing this book I have a wonderful sense of how much continuity there is in this organization,” he said, even during the society’s “bad times,” he added.
As well as photographs, the book also contains a wealth of both above-ground and underground maps and early line drawings of the region.
However, such rich holdings were particularly challenging given publisher Arcadia’s boilerplate format.
“We were limited to 250 images and came in at just under that,” Taylor said, grinning. As a result, the paperback was designed as more of a picture book with extended captions rather than large blocks of text.
“It’s an interesting book for anyone, but it’s really for the person who doesn’t want to read a lot,” he said.
The book’s 10 chapters span about 120 pages and take the reader through a pictorial journey of the Calumet & Hecla and Quincy Mines, the cities of Houghton and Hancock, and the mill towns of Lake Linden and Freda.
A master model railroader and owner of RailDreams, a company which builds custom model railroad layouts, Taylor not surprisingly included a wealth of railroad photographs from around the region. Other chapters depict photographs from the area’s timber and shipping industries.
Taylor credited graphic artist Doug Jones with a “huge” portion of the work in putting the book together, from scanning photographs to contributing to layout and design.
“I would write something wordy and complicated, and Doug essentially would fix it,” Taylor said.
Florence Bashaw, the society’s archivist, also played a large part in the project, he said.
“Doug and I came in, played with the photos and messed up all her files,” Taylor said. “I do feel badly about that.”
Bashaw has her future work cut out for her, however, as Taylor has already signed a contract for several more books with Arcadia. The next will be on Copper Country railroads, while the third will focus on Keweenaw County, likely in partnership with local author Clarence Monette.
“It’s really hard to stay focused,” Taylor said about the researching process, which tempted him to go off-track more than once. “I have ideas for 20 more books, at least.”
“Images of America: Houghton County 1870-1920” by Richard E. Taylor is available at the Houghton County Historical Society bookstore, local gift and book stores, and through the Internet at www.arcadiapublishing.com. It sells for $19.95.
Jane Nordberg can be reached at jnordberg@mininggazette.com
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