For the month of February, the Hagen History Center will be recognizing African Americans in Erie County: A Trail of Shared Heritage (The Trail).
Trail #21: Bay City Lodge No. 68/Prince Hall Temple – 1616-1618 parade Street, Erie One of the oldest African American fraternal organizations in the city, Bay City Lodge No. 68 Free and Accepted mason was organized in 1872 by charter members James Grandison, W.R. Barney, James Davis, and John Vosbury. This building also served as the headquarters of the local chapter of the NAACP during the early ‘70s and housed the Central Citty Neighborhood Action Team Organization (NATO) community center 1974 -1984.
For the month of February, Hagen History Center will be recognizing African Americans in Erie County: A Trail of Shared Heritage (The Trail).
The Trail is a community history project that dates back to 2013, that continues to inspire us about Erie’s Black History. Hagen History Center planned to present multiple images for each stop on the Trail, but then realized our collections lack visual materials for a few of the stops.
To help us rectify this, we are inviting readers to become Citizen Archivists.
A Citizen Archivist is a term coined in 2010 by the National Archives and describes a virtual volunteer who helps professional archivists by locating and uploading relevant information, tagging, and adding metadata to already established online archives.
Click the link for the Trail, and if you happen to have documents, photographs, maps, or other images associated with a trail number, send us a message on social media! We will be posting a few times a week, so stay tuned!