Sand Hill City Website
This website is is one of the most important components of the Sand Hill City project, second only to the newspaper article searchable spreadsheet, which will, in time be incorporated into the site. Besides creating a novel component to the printed Evening Tribune newspaper books, the site allows me to take any, or all, of the vast amount of Grand Haven history I have gathered up over the years and present it to the public in an organized and economical way.
That means, that once my host server (Hostway) finishes registering this site with the numerous browsers engines, people anywhere in the world seeking particular information on a person, place or event, will find it here if it is within the content of this site which is packed full of such data.
Genealogists comb obituaries, cemetery records and other geological trees in search of information on people. However, to search many of the old newspapers it is an almost impossible task as many of these old newspapers are missing, or never had article chronologies. Even where such chronologies are present it is impossible for them to provide many, if not, most of the individual persons, places and events because of their brevity and limited scope.
The only way to find such information is to take on the daunting task of trying to read these newspapers one by one which is difficult, impractical and time consuming for someone search for only a few items. Most of the pre-1916 Tribunes are very difficult to read as there are no article subject headings and all news is presented together in continuous small-print columns. Even though I use full zoom on the microfilm reader, I still make full use of a magnifying glass.
It took me eight years to read 26 years of the Tribune and index over 6000 articles. Initially I was searching for beach and pier safety incidents and pier construction. However, after only few newspapers my interest broadened to include the whole history of Grand Haven in the 1890s. Every reading session was an adventure in time and I quickly became consumed by it until I had a very real sense of living back then, which in a way, makes me Grand Haven's oldest living citizen ― about 130 years old assuming that I would have started reading newspapers at 15!
The multitude of stories from 1891 to 1917 would positively astound most area residents. The Sand Hill City project is my way of sharing these stories and the way of life back then.