An example of one of the more unique postcards in the vast collection of Grand Rapids resident Thomas Dilley, who has donated his more than 5,000 postcards depicting historic Grand Rapids scenes and landmarks to the city's public library. (Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

By Mark Tower | MLive.com

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — After a solid five decades of collecting, Thomas Dilley amassed a collection of more than 5,000 postcards depicting Grand Rapids landmarks and scenes dating back to the late 1800s.

Though he speaks passionately about the postcards and the insights they give into the history of his hometown, Dilley recently decided to part with his entire collection.

He said the library is best suited to organize and make publicly available the vast collection of postcards, which in many ways form a historical record of the city.

"It’s a public collection and it’s available to everybody," Dilley said. "That’s what I wanted."

The former Grand Rapids attorney and local history enthusiast donated all 5,000-some postcards to the Grand Rapids Public Library, which has already started cataloging them as the "Thomas R. and Debra C. Dilley Historical Collection."

Though Dilley's postcards span almost a full century, from the 1890s through the 1980s, the majority come from the first few decades in that span. It's a period collectors know as the "golden age" of postcards, running roughly from 1895 to the beginning of World War I in 1914, during which Dilley said an untold number were created.

"There were literally millions and millions," he said. "We can’t even estimate how many postcards were produced during that time."

The collection includes advertisements for long-gone Grand Rapids businesses, street scenes from a barely recognizable downtown area and images featuring the storied character "Mr. Rover," a unique local series of postcards that includes its own story of theft, betrayal and mystery.

When combined with the personal messages scrawled on many by the original senders or recipients, Dilley said, the visual representation of what life must have been like here so long ago drew him to collecting the postcards in his youth and kept him going past No. 5,000.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

Streetcar and pedestrian traffic can be seen filling Monroe Avenue in downtown Grand Rapids in this postcard, one of thousands of historic postcards donated to the Grand Rapids Public Library by Thomas Dilley.

Out of his more than 5,000 postcards, this is Dilley's favorite.

Reading about what Grand Rapids was like in the 1930s is one thing, he said. But there is nothing quite like seeing it.

"The thing I really love about it is it really pulses with activity," Dilley said. "It shows what Grand Rapids was really like. It’s more than a picture. It’s a statement about my hometown."

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

Auto races at the Grand Rapids Fair in 1912 are shown in this photo postcard, part of the collection donated by Dilley.

Races were held in the early 1900s at Grand Rapids Fairgrounds or Western Michigan Fairgrounds, located along North Park Street between the Grand River and West River Drive in Comstock Park.

Dilley explained the largest volume of postcards being contained in the last several years of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century is largely a product of world events. What he described as "a mania" for collecting and using postcards during those years was fed primarily by the German lithography and printing industry, which ground to a halt at the start of World War I.

Though that shift helped give birth to a domestic printing industry in the United States, in many ways it marked an end of the "golden age" of postcards, Dilley said.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

The Grand Rapids National Bank Building, later McKay Tower, can be seen in this image, located just east of Campau Square at the junction of Monroe Avenue and Pearl Street.

The site where Grand Rapids' first frame house was built in 1833, the property also hosted the first township elections in 1834 before the four-story Wonderly Building was built there.

Twelve stories were later added in 1925 and 1926, and another two in the 1940s, resulting in an 18-story building and Grand Rapids' first real skyscraper.

In 1942, the building was purchased by millionaire Frank D. McKay, who willed the property to University of Michigan upon his death. The 227-foot-tall tower, which still bears McKay's name, remained the city's tallest building until the Amway Grand Tower Plaza was completed in 1983.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

A postcard shows the site of the Grand Rapids Brewing Company, founded at the corner of Michigan Street and Ionia Avenue in 1893 when six local breweries joined forces.

With its flagship Silver Foam beer, Grand Rapids Brewing Company grew to become a major player among Midwest breweries. But that came to a crashing halt with the implementation of prohibition in 1920. Afterward, the company merged with several other breweries and left the area.

Mark Sellers, founder of BarFly Ventures and owner of other area bars, opened a brewery under the name Grand Rapids Brewing Company in 2012. The new iteration of the historic brewery is located six blocks south of the original, at Ionia and Fulton streets.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

Silver Foam beer was the flagship product of Grand Rapids Brewing Company, founded in 1893 when six local breweries joined forces. In this postcard, a bottle serves as the force holding aloft an airship piloted high above the city.

Shortly after the repeal of Prohibition, credited with stalling the company's growth seen prior to the 1920s, Grand Rapids Brewing Company merged with several other breweries and left the area.

A local brewery opened in 2012 by Mark Sellers bears the name of the former local brewing giant. The newer iteration is located six blocks south of the original, at Ionia and Fulton streets.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

Another postcard tied to Grand Rapids' brewing industry carries an advertisement for Fox Deluxe Brewing Co. It encourages visitors to Grand Rapids to stop by the brewery's Hunt Room.

Fox Deluxe Brewing was founded by Peter Fox. Fox bought the former Hoffman Brothers Brewery property on Monroe as well as the location pictured above at Michigan and Ionia streets, which housed Fox Deluxe Brewing, while expanding his already successful Chicago-based brewing enterprise into Michigan. The brewery operated there from 1941-1951.

Grand Rapids' Creston Brewery, which opened in the city's Creston neighborhood in 2016, pays homage to the historical brewery with its house IPA, called Fox Deluxe.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

This photo postcard shows horse-drawn carriages, wagons and carts lining an unpaved street in the Madison Square business district.

Two-story buildings, mostly flat-roofed, line both sides of the street. Awnings have been unfurled on stores that face the direction of the sun — both to keep the interiors cool and to prevent fading of merchandise. A large overhead sign spanning Madison Avenue reads "Welcome to the Madison Square".

Today a residential neighborhood centered around the business district at the intersection of Madison and Hall streets, Madison Square was among the first outlying shopping areas established in Grand Rapids.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

Another postcard from the Dilley collection shows workers engaged in a street construction project in Grand Rapids.

Though the location of the street project is not identified, the local contractor on the project is named as "D. Medendorp."

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

Superimposed over this photograph of Monroe Street at Campau Square is the gigantic Mr. Rover.

The comic series of postcards featuring the character were published and sold by local printer and publisher Reed-Tandler Company in 1907. Each of the cards, numbering 28 in all, depict an oversized man sitting on, walking through or leaning against a different Grand Rapids landmark.

Perhaps even more fascinating than the unique postcards themselves is the story of the man whose photographs were used in creation of the "Mr. Rover" images.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

The man who portrayed the fictional Mr. Rover in all of the cards was Harry H. Wykom, a local insurance broker. Here, Wykom's inflated image reclines while reading in front of the city's Ryerson Public Library.

Early in 1908, at a time when his face had become well-known in Grand Rapids, Wykom disappeared from town, taking with him all the cash from his insurance business and his secretary, Mamie Lynch.

Neither Wykom nor Lynch were ever seen in Grand Rapids again, though a hotel clerk in Detroit indicated the pair were “going east”.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

Here, Mr. Rover splashes into the Grand River at the Bridge Street bridge.

Some speculate the images might have presented a warning of Wykom’s future plans.

One depicts Mr. Rover running to catch a train at Union Station, as he and his secretary might have later done. Another shows only the character's feet, running away from the local police headquarters.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

A sweeping vista of Grand Rapids is offered on this postcard from the vantage point atop "The Drive" at John Ball Park.

A similar view is still available to visitors outside John Ball Zoo's Bissell Tree House venue, though the city skyline has changed quite a bit over the years.

One of the things Dilley said he appreciates the most about the postcards is that they create a historical record of people and places that, in many cases, become the only photographic record of that person or place.

"Sometimes they are the only picture of sometime or someplace that were ever produced or ever saved," he said. "Without them — without postcard images — there would be huge swaths of our history that would simply be visually lost."

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

This postcard shows one of Grand Rapids' streetcars and some of the drivers who operated them.

The city's streetcar system started with tracks laid in 1865 and advanced from horse-drawn carriages to steam-driven cars, cable cars and, finally, the Grand Rapids Electric Coach in 1926. The local streetcars were disbanded in 1935.

The streetcar also played an important role in the history of postcards, Dilley said.

At a time when mail deliveries were made twice each day and telephones were not yet common in homes, he said postcards were often the easiest and most efficient way to send a message. A man working downtown, Dilley said, could drop a postcard into a box on the corner of a passing trolley and it would arrive at his home that afternoon before he returned from work.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

Horse-drawn carts and streetcars can be seen traveling along Plainfield Avenue in this photo, one of the more than 5,000 postcards donated to the Grand Rapids Public Museum by Thomas Dilley.

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Grand Rapids Historical Society trustee Thomas Dilley talks about the Moses Aldrich family plot in the historic Oak Hill Cemetery in Grand Rapids on Aug. 27, 2012. (Chris Clark | MLive.com)

A collector parts with his collection

To say Thomas Dilley has an interest in the history of his hometown would certainly be an understatement.

Dilley has written four books on the topic, two of which feature several of the postcards from his collection. One of his books focuses on Grand Rapids' historic cemeteries, in which he has also organized a series of tours that have drawn thousands.

His collecting of postcards began in his teenage years, Dilley said, though his fascination with the images and the history they represent only grew with time.

Though he makes no claim of having an exhaustive collection, the slowing rate at which he found new and unique postcards in recent years suggest to Dilley that he might have been closing in on a complete collection of postcards on the subject.

"The only way you know you’re approaching the end is you stop finding handfuls of new cards you’ve never seen before — you keep bumping up against duplicates," he said. "That's how you know you’re getting close to the end. And that’s where I’ve been for a number of years."

Handing over 50 years of work might seem daunting to some, but Dilley said he has never felt a longing for the postcards he handed over to the library earlier this year.

"There isn’t one single piece of material they have in the library that you can't go in there today and ask them to see and they'll pull it out for you," he said. "I really don’t feel like, 'Oh shucks, I really miss this.' I can walk into that place anytime that they’re open down there and look through those cards again."

Dilley said he likes the idea of others visiting the library, thumbing through the collection and finding something that elicits the same revelations he has experiences while gazing back into Grand Rapids' past.

Now retired from his law practice, Dilley still remains active in the community, serving on the Grand Rapids Historical Commission, the Grand Rapids Historical Society, the Grand Rapids Public Museum Foundation and as an emeritus member of the Grand Rapids Public Library Foundation.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

Envelopes tell their own story

Notes scrawled at the bottom of postcards and the notes and envelopes accompanying others tell their own stories, Dilley said.

They help explain how often the postcards — originally sold for just 1, 2 or 3 cents — were used for routine communication and correspondence. Others give perspective on what was going on in Grand Rapids, the country and the world at the time they were sent, Dilley said.

Some in his collection are from the 1960, when then-Sen. John F. Kennedy was campaigning for president, and contain interesting notes and comments about the future president's visit to Grand Rapids.

"It’s an interesting insight into what was going on in Grand Rapids," Dilley said.

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(Photo provided to MLive by Grand Rapids Public Library)

Unique types of postcards

Some of the most interesting and unusual cards in the collection include:

Mechanical cards with moving parts

Postcards with tiny envelopes glued on the front in which a sender could include a note

Postcards made from leather

Real photo postcards, which were not commercially produced. Rather, an photographer would capture an image using a special camera and print it onto postcard stock. Many of these images are unique and cannot be found anywhere else.

Postcards from local breweries not already a part of the library's collection

Combined with its existing collection of postcards, local librarians believe Dilley's donation result in a nearly complete collection of every Grand Rapids postcard ever produced.

The Grand Rapids Public Library assures the Thomas R. and Debra C. Dilley Historical Collection will be accessible for public use. They supplement the library's existing collection of nearly one million historical images of Grand Rapids.