Decatur, Michigan
The Toni I. Benson Room of Local History and Genealogy is a premiere destination for researchers. Housed in the Webster Memorial Library in Decatur, the collection includes thousands of books, microfilm, periodicals, photographs and manuscripts relating to Southwestern Michigan.
The collection also includes resources for select states and foreign countries, and general Michigan history. The Benson Room is an affiliated library for the Family History Center in Salt Lake City.
Hours
The local history collection is open to researchers Monday through Friday, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm; and Saturday, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. The Benson Room observes all holiday and other closings of the Webster Memorial Branch, Van Buren District Library.
Requests for Information
Requests for information are welcome and may be made to Local History. Be sure to include any information you have such as dates of birth and death and geographical area researching. The more information given the better the result.
Researching in the Benson Room
There are two computers dedicated to researching in the Benson Room.
Ancestry Library Edition is accessible inside all branches of Van Buren District Library. Fold 3, an online resource for researching U.S. military records is accessible in the library and from home with your VBDL library card.
Main Categories of the Local History Collection
Newspapers: The microfilm collection includes newspapers from many communities in southwestern Michigan including Bangor, Bloomingdale, Covert, Decatur, Hartford, Gobles, Lawton, Lawrence, Paw Paw and South Haven.
Obituaries: The Southwest Michigan Obituary Collection is an index containing over 89,000 entries dating from Southwest Michigan’s earliest history through the year 2011. An index can be found on Ancestry.com but we have many more that are not listed there so don’t hesitate to ask.
Special Collections
The Toni I. Benson Room has many specific collections for researchers. If you don’t see a collection that meets your needs, please contact the local history librarian.
- Bess Britton One-Room Schoolhouse Collection
- Family Files
- Historical Platbooks and Atlases dating from1860 for Southwest Michigan
- Picture Collection
- Area Yearbooks
- Cemetery books for Southwest Michigan
Contacts
Amy Druskovich, Local History Librarian
