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Tappan Junior High School Site, from air, April 1949

Tappan Junior High School Site, from air, April 1949 image
Year
1949
Month
April
Description

"In the foreground are some of the beginnings of the Tuomy Hills subdivision. The closest road is Washtenaw Avenue, running from right to left (or left to right, if you are heading into town). Beyond Washtenaw is the patch of bare earth (once part of the Tuomy family farm) where Tappan School now stands -- at the head of an elongated "V" formed by Washtenaw and the more distant East Stadium Blvd, and capped by Brockman, which forms the corner in which the school is nestled, facing East Stadium. Tappan's athletic fields stretch all the way back to Washtenaw.

St. Francis Catholic Church stands opposite the Tappan acreage on East Stadium, on ten acres of land obtained from devout Catholics Cornelius W. ("Bill") Tuomy and Kathryn Tuomy (brother and sister), descendants of Irish immigrants, who kept a deathbed promise to their mother never to marry, instead living together in the historic Spalding-Tuomy farmhouse (still at 2117 Washtenaw) that they inherited at her death. The siblings were partners in a real estate and insurance firm ("Tuomy and Tuomy") that developed the former farmland, selling parcels only to buyers who promised to build houses worth at least $15,000. In 1930, they built the picturesque stone gas station at the junction of Washtenaw and Stadium. They died in the mid-1960s." (Wystan Stevens)

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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.