Dave Marchioni, 55, of St. Clair Shores and the industrial and automotive curator for the Detroit Historical Society, pulls back the protective cover on a 1934 Stout Scarab on Nov. 9, 2023, at the Collections Resource Center in Detroit. The Scarab is one of 60 vehicles that is kept in storage. The vehicles are occasionally rotated into exhibition at the Detroit Historical Museum on Woodward in Detroit. The Scarab was a car made in the Detroit area, at Scott Street and Telegraph in Dearborn. This one is one of six remaining with three of them in the state of Michigan. Two of those Scarabs are missing and there is an urban legend that one of them was used as a ice shanty and sank when the ice thawed.
It’s just an ordinary building on the grounds of Historic Fort Wayne in Detroit. But what’s inside is far from ordinary.
“It’s probably the best kept secret in Detroit,” said Elana Rugh, president and CEO of the Detroit Historical Society.
The secrets inside this 70,000-square-feet space can be described as awe-inspiring — and certainly historic — for metro Detroiters.
David Schneider, who has worked at the Detroit Historical Society’s Collections Resource Center in Detroit since 2002, pushes a cart as he passes by an old iron lung machine and a penny farthing bike while looking for Hudson’s items on Nov. 9, 2023. The items will be used for a "Hudsons for the Holidays" exhibition that the museum on Woodward Avenue in Detroit is getting ready to display later this month.
Dave Marchioni, 55, of St. Clair Shores and the industrial and automotive curator for the Detroit Historical Society moves a 1951 Packard Pan-American show car into place at a studio located at the back of the large warehouse at the Detroit Historical Society's Collections Resource Center in Detroit on Thursday, November 2, 2023.
At the society’s Collection Resource Center, the aisles are covered with protective plastic. On one side, an original Hudson’s water fountain, donated by the Target Corp. On another side, a ticket window from Tiger Stadium, a chalkboard from the "Soupy Sales Show," and even a log flume from a Boblo Island water ride.
Over the course of a year, items in the collection are swapped in and out, put on display for the public to see at the Detroit Historical Museum on Woodward Avenue in Midtown.
“I’m always taken aback that we are allowed to keep and protect this history," said Dave Marchioni, 55, of St. Clair Shores. He's the industrial and automotive curator for the Detroit Historical Society, and one of 10 full-time workers, along with several volunteers, who continue to delicately handle, digitize and catalogue the collection's 300,000 artifacts and counting. Marchioni is the center's newest automotive curator since they last had one in the late 1970s, and he knows his way around cars, even old models dating back to the early 1900s.
Dave Marchioni, 55, of St. Clair Shores and the industrial and automotive curator for the Detroit Historical Society, left, and Joe Tonietto, 67, of Troy, look to see how this 1934 Stout Scarab could be lifted up and taken to a built-in studio in the warehouse on Nov. 9, 2023. The Scarab is one of 60 vehicles that is kept in storage. The vehicles are occasionally rotated into exhibition at the Detroit Historical Museum on Woodward in Detroit. The Scarab was a car made in the Detroit area, at Scott Street and Telegraph in Dearborn. This one is one of six remaining with three of them in the state of Michigan. Two of those Scarabs are missing and there is an urban legend that one of them was used as a ice shanty and sank when the ice thawed.
A 1963 Ford Cougar II Prototype built on a Shelby Cobra chassis and a 1914 Scripps-Booth "Rocket" cycle car sit inside plastic inflatable bubbles to keep them protected at the large warehouse at the Detroit Historical Society's Collections Resource Center in Detroit on Thursday, November 2, 2023.
LEFT: The emblem of an entry level Buick built at a factory in Flint in 1929. TOP RIGHT: The emblem of a 1924 Rickenbacker Coupe. BOTTOM RIGHT: The emblem of a 1918 Maxwell Touring car. BOTTOM LEFT: The emblem of a 1915 Scripps-Booth Cycle Car.
With 50 vehicles in the warehouse, each stored for protection inside large inflatable plastic bubbles, there is so much history inside each one. Like a 1905 Cadillac, the first closed-body Cadillac ever built, that was the personal car of Henry Leland, the founder of Cadillac and Lincoln. Or a 1934 Stout Scarab, one of six remaining in existence, that was made at Scott Street and Telegraph in Dearborn.
“Our responsibility, which we take very seriously, is to be the stewards of the city’s collection of artifacts and its stories," Rugh said. "History is a powerful teacher."
LEFT: An archival photo from the Detroit Historical Society shows a 1910 Packard pulling out of a Detroit firehouse. RIGHT: Joe Tonietto, 67, of Troy, left, and Dave Marchioni, 55, of St. Clair Shores and the industrial and automotive curator for the Detroit Historical Society, discuss a 1910 Packard that was going to be photographed in the studio at the warehouse of the Collections Resource Center in Detroit on Nov. 9, 2023. The Packard was modified back then so the Detroit Fire Department could use it as a firefighter transport squad car.
The Detroit Historical Society and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History are asking the Legislature to pass the History Museums Authority Act, which would allow the two museums to ask voters in Wayne and Oakland counties to approve a property tax of up to .4 mills, about $40 a year on a home worth $200,000, for up to 20 years to fund museum operations. The Legislature adjourned for this year without passing the legislation.
She, like many at the society, hopes the upcoming millage passes because "we have artifacts that cover literally every part of life of Detroit, and it’s all representative to everything this city has gone through. And it’s critical that we keep this."
Steve Scherr, 69, of Livonia, a volunteer at the Collections Resource Center of the Detroit Historical Society, works at cataloging various Civil War reunion ribbons from the 7th Regimental Michigan Infantry on Nov. 9, 2023. Scherr, a history enthusiast, has been volunteering at the center located on the grounds of the Historic Fort Wayne since 2021.
Models of various street cars are a small part of the large Detroit Historical Society’s Collections Resource Center in Detroit on Thursday, November 9, 2023. Between ships, cars, trolley and plans the Detroit Historical Society has well over 1,000 in storage.
While the center isn’t open to the public, Marchioni says the best way to see these treasures is by becoming a member, as the society offers a once and sometimes twice a year behind-the-scenes tour of the warehouse with so much of that history inside of it.
"It’s just a rich and amazing history we have here in Detroit," Marchioni said. "To be able to contribute to the preservation of the artifacts is humbling. The stuff I get to interact with on a daily basis is just so special."
