Oakland Township, Michigan
It's Your Memory, It's Our History, It's Worth Saving!

Delta Kelly, Barbara Kandarian and Jeanne Phillips founded the Oakland Township Historical Society in 1974. Our mission is to gather, interpret and preserve the history of Oakland Township. The Society leases part of the 16-acre Cranberry Lake Farm Historic District in township-owned Cranberry Lake Park. The farmstead buildings are a community historical center for meetings, events and displays of our collections of township artifacts and used by the Oakland Township Parks & Recreation Commission.  The Farm is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and has a Michigan Historical Marker as a designated historic resource.
 

OTHS is a member of the following organizations

Annual Events

• Greater Rochester Heritage Days -  May
• Goodison Good Tyme - September
• Down on the Farm (with HDC)

• 'A Footpath thru Goodison History' – a Walking Tour Brochure, $1.00  
• 'Oakland Township Heritage & Civil War bus tour' – September 2012, $4.00  
• 'Heritage in Oakland Township' – a booklet, $5.00
• Oakland Township Scenes note card set by local artist Lyn Sieffert
• 1872 color reproductions of historical map of Oakland Twp, matted and suitable for framing, $20
  
  The Society is proud to have supplied the winning name to Delta Kelly Elementary School.

The Society provides excellent programs on the first Wednesday evening of September, November, December, March, April, and June.  See the Homepage or visit our Facebook page for more information.

Field trips are scheduled in May and October.  Meeting notices are sent to members with the Oakland Heritage News .

Members supply a perennial plant sale at Greater Rochester Heritage Days in the Rochester Municipal Park each May with displays of our local history. 

We participate in Goodison Good Tyme in September.

Farm and Barn Survey
Our barn survey team has completed documenting and photographing 62 farmsteads with at least one barn over 50 years old.  A computerized slide show presentation is available to other groups for a fee of $75.  Barn and farm documentation includes site plans, structural details of barns, and history of the site.  It fills 22 notebooks. The MSU Museum requested townships to complete the Michigan Barn and Farmstead Survey because these sites are fast disappearing.

Oral Histories, Documents and Artifacts
The Society is recording and transcribing oral histories of longtime residents and we welcome photographs, documents, household furnishings, farm tools and other artifacts that reflect our heritage.

Currently all stained glass in the state is being documented by the MSU Museum in the Michigan Stained Glass Census. We would like to include more stained glass in our township in this census. So far, the historic Paint Creek Methodist Church windows(left) and the Paint Creek Cider Mill restaurant windows(right) are in the census.

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