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Company established by William G. Fargo of Jackson, Michigan, a pioneer in hydroelectric engineering. The company specialized in providing civil engineering design, construction, and consultation services for various power plant projects and dams mainly in Michigan but also in Connecticut, Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, and Wisconsin. The record group consists of two series: Job Files and Office Files. The Job Files series consists of the following subseries: Alphabetical Cross Index of Jobs, Visual Materials, Design Reports and Site Specific Materials, and Engineering Field Notes. The Office Files series includes business correspondence of William G. Fargo for the period of 1897 to 1905 and relating in part to the construction of an interurban/electric trolley system for Jackson, Michigan. Office Files also includes a folder of office specifications, contracts and test procedures and a folder of published promotional sales material.

The records of the Fargo Engineering Company consists design reports, field notes, and photographs of various dam an power plant construction projects as well as office files, primarily correspondence. The records consist of eleven linear feet of materials dating from 1897 to 1951 with the bulk of the documents dating from 1910 to 1930. The record group has been divided into two series: Job Files and Office Files.

The Penrod/Hiawatha Company collection is mainly comprised of postcards, although some supplemental photographic items directed toward tourists is also included. The postcards, numbering more than 5,000, primarily are of the Michigan landscape and its towns and cities, covering every region of the state. Typical postcard themes dominate, particularly natural scenery, outdoor recreation, and shopping districts. The postcards date from the 1950s through the opening decades of the twenty-first century, although very few display copyright dates. The collection is divided into the following series.

1. Non-Postcard Items (calendars, brochures, booklets): Box 1
2. Non-Penrod/Hiawatha Postcards: Box 2
3. Penrod/Hiawatha Postcards, 1970s-1990s: Boxes 2-5
4. Penrod/Hiawatha Postcards, mid- to late 1990s: Boxes 5-6
5. Penrod/Hiawatha Postcards, late 1990s-2000): Boxes 6-7
6. Penrod/Hiawatha Postcards, 2001-2004: Box 8
7. Penrod/Hiawatha Postcards, 2005-2014: Box 9
8. Oversize and miscellaneous: Box 10

As batches of postcards are received every years, it was decided to arrange the items in blocks of time according to the date of their accession. Thus for the researcher interested in a specific city, it will be necessary to examine the listing for each of the series.

Postcard views of Michigan cities and the University of Michigan.

The Michigan Historical Collections postcard collection contains picture postcards of Michigan scenes. The collection was brought together by MHC staff. The postcards depict a large number of Michigan communities, with the largest number of cards relating to Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan, and Detroit.

The postcards are arranged by the name of the town shown in the picture. In cases where names have changed, or for rural places that might be identified with several surrounding towns, the postcards are filed according to the name used on the card. For instance, postcards of the Irish Hills region can be found under that name as well as under the nearby towns of Brooklyn and Onsted.

Outsize postcards are located in Box 12, and a few postcards too large for that box are located with the medium sized photographs in UCCm.