Public Library
The gift of $10,000 from Andrew Carnegie made possible the construction of this building in 1905. As a member of the Ladies Literary Club Mrs. Thomas Bandfield had written Mr. Carnegie explaining that the club would like to buy a site for a library in their village if it was possible to obtain the cost of the building from him. He agreed to furnish $10,000 to erect a Free Public Library building if a site would be provided and if the taxpayers would provide no less than $1,000 a year to maintain it.
The township of Portland voted to apply a one mill tax (440 yes to 199 no votes) to raise the necessary funds and the Ladies Literary Club was given three lots on Kent Street by Samuel Jarvis for the consideration of one dollar a lot. Construction started in July, 1905, and the dedication setvices took place June 8, 1906 with Dr. James B. Angell, the President of the University of Michigan giving the address at the ceremonies. It was a big day in Portland and schools and stores were closed so that people could attend the event in the Opera House.
The library also maintains a collection of photographs of historic interest from which many of the pictures on this website were obtained.
Charles E. Goodwin, under his pen name of J. K. Swipes, was well-known to readers of the
Portland papers in the early years of this century. His short verses commented on almost any subject which engaged his attention. Mr. Goodwin lived four miles from the village and in his seventies, he still walked the distance to town. He retained twelve acres when he sold his farm to the Commonwealth Power company and raised melons and chickens.
Clarence Budington Kelland, author, best known for his "Scattergood Baines" stories in the American Magazine in 1921; "Arizona" in 1939; Sugarfoot in 1942; "Archibald The Great" in 1943;" The Great Mail Robbery" in 1951; and "The Monitor Affair" in 1960. His mind also gave birth to such fictional heroes as Mark Tibb and Mr. Deeds. His serials and short stories appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.
He was born in Portland on July 11, 1881. The actual birthplace on the southwest corner of the plat known as Powers Park has been destroyed, but the family home for most of the ten years that C. B. Kelland lived in Portland was on Lincoln Street. He produced sixty novels and more than two hundred short stories in his sixty-one years of writing. Several of his writings provided the basis for motion pictures, radio programs, and television shows. From the 1920s through the 1950s, "Bud" Kelland was one of the most widely read and highest paid authors in America. In one of his earliest novels, "The Steadfast Heart", he gives a verbal picture of the Portland he remembered, although he called his village, "Rainbow". He died February 19, 1964, at the age of 82..
In October of 1987, a memorial stone was dedicated to Kelland's birthplace. The stone is located beyond the left field fence at Powers Park. It was purchased and donated to the city by Donald and Elmere Wright, former owners of the land.
Byron Smith, the Village Blacksmith, son of Wm. T. Smith, did his best to live up to both his names. Like his father, he was a blacksmith, and like his namesake, he wrote verse. The picture shows him at the time of the 1929 Homecoming.
