The Attic

Would you like to order The Best of the Brooklyn Exponent Attic? This historic book gives a retrospective look at the Brooklyn, Irish Hills, and the surrounding lake communities. → order book and view sample pages Click below for this week's The Brooklyn Exponent Attic (pdf format): → Page 1  Page 2
Our Exponent Attic feature reveals our area's past, through articles, letters, and most popular of all, pictures. During recent years many Exponent readers have expressed a great deal of interest in the old pictures printed in the paper and we welcome others to share their collections with us. Call (517) 592-2122 or stop by at 160 S. Main St., Brooklyn, MI 49230. You can even email the picture to us! Send a description of the photo as well, please.

Also featured in The Exponent Attic is a brief look at the top news stories from 25, 50 and 75 years ago. Short research articles are also offered. A sample of such a look back in time is below:

75 years ago · July 3, 1930
Young Man Disappears, Boat Found, Then Body
The second water fatality at Clarks Lake occurred Saturday when Raymond Barber of Jackson disappeared in the waters of the lake, his body being found Sunday morning. He was 21 years of age and a young man of fine physique, though he could not swim well. Saturday afternoon he was with a group of other Consumers Power Co. employees who donned bathing suits and were picking up stones on the lake bottom near the club house dock for the benefit of the bathing beach. After the others came in, Barber stayed out with the boat he had, and it is thought he unintentionally jumped out of the boat into the water above his head. No one saw the accident and no alarm was felt until the empty boat was discovered floating to shore up toward Larry Miller's hotel, and a check up revealed that Barber's clothes were still in the locker at the club house. Search for the body at once started and was continued long into the night by the sheriff's department and others who rigged lights to illuminate the lake bottom. The body was found Sunday forenoon in about ten feet of water not far from the club house.

Doing some research on the area on an event, or are you looking for information on a long-lost relative? We can try to put the word out, asking for the information you're seeking, and pass what we learn along to you!

Recent research article in The Exponent Attic (pdf format):
→ December 12, 2006

If you are looking for a particular scene to be published in The Brooklyn Exponent, please let us know. If our archives do not have it, we can ask our readers in the 'reader's requests' part of the Attic.

Currently, we have put the call out for the following information or photos:
• Napoleon area postcards, pictures, or memorabilia
• The building of Loch Erin
• Pictures or memories of the carnival which was based near the Irish Hills Towers c. 1926-7
• Photos of Cement City, Somerset, and Brooklyn scenery
• Photos or memories of the Palm Sunday tornado of April 11, 1965

Scanned copies of most old-time photos which appear in The Exponent Attic feature are available for purchase. Copies are printed onto an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of laser paper at 600 dpi/120 line screen for $1 per sheet. Are you looking for something in particular? The old Onsted Flouring Mill, the Brooklyn depot, Napoleon's old high school, or Addison's brick yard, for example? Just ask us! We have a large archive. Our archives include our bound copies of The Exponent back to August of 1922. Issues prior to 1922 were lost to a fire in 1914 and bound volumes were not made again until 1922. Do you have any Exponent issues before 1922 in the attic??? We would value the opportunity to photocopy your paper to place in our archives! Do you wish to look up an old article or do a little genealogy research? Come by our office and we will assist you!	The Irish Hills Towers still stand as silent sentries on the eastern edge of the Irish Hills (May 17, 2007 photo)