Give Larry Hains an old, faded photo of Front Street from generations ago, and with any luck, he’ll “triangulate” the date for you in quick order.

The street’s still dirt? Well, it has to be before 1902. But the two large trees on the west side of the Union Street intersection are already gone? Then it must be after 1896. Some versions of this exercise might use entire buildings as clues, others something as small as a certain road sign or a business that only existed for a few short years. 

Hains, 80, is quick to tell you that all of this information doesn’t live in his head. He has old directories, labeled photos and other resources he can check to make sure he’s on the right track.

“Some people think I have it in my mind, but good lord, I have trouble remembering what I ate for breakfast sometimes,” he tells The Ticker. “The key is being able to reference a lot of other things.”

The constantly deferential Hains, 80, will tell you he “doesn’t hold a candle” to people like Larry Wakefield, a noted local historian who authored several books about the region’s past. But after managing the Facebook page for the Traverse Area Historical Society for almost seven years, Hains has built an impressive repository of info-rich, sometimes humorous posts that have engaged and educated countless thousands of viewers.

“His work is invaluable – it really is the face of what we do,” TAHS board member Jennifer Loup tells The Ticker. “He might downplay it because it’s not a book, but it’s more digestible than a book, and certainly just as important.”

Hains was born in Traverse City and lives in an unassuming home on State Street that his parents built. He raised four daughters and spent 10 years as a teacher, but the bulk of his career was in collections for the Internal Revenue Service.

“I’d come out and bring a rope with me,” he joked of that work. “You could either use that rope to help me help you pull yourself out of the hole, or you could hang yourself with it.”

His interest in history has been lifelong, but it wasn’t until relatively recently that he made things formal by joining the board at TAHS and taking the reins of a Facebook page that now gets far more engagement than one might expect for the topic. Multiple posts have generated over 1,000 likes and/or comments, with Hains' informal, conversational and inviting tone adding to the appeal. 

Hains pulls from the TAHS’ vast library of photos (housed at the Traverse Area District Library), selecting those of interest to share. He pays careful attention to avoid repeats and to explore new areas of town, and he presents most photos with a detailed description of what’s there and why it was notable. He might go through 200 pictures before finding one worthy of sharing, he says.

“Not everybody’s interested in learning about history, of course, but I really enjoy passing it on. (The TAHS') mission is to preserve, protect and present, and this is a big part of the presenting,” he says. “Maybe it’s the teacher coming out in me. And I like to add my two cents here and there, maybe add a little humor.”

Hains enjoys the work; more specifically he enjoys that TAHS’ followers enjoy the work. He gets lots of positive feedback from people who enjoy his regular posts.

“I've always said that lucky is the teacher who has a student who comes back years later and thanks them, and this is kind of the same way,” he said. “You never know, but people seem to appreciate it.”

Buildings and parks and streets are fine and good, but he’s also found much satisfaction in sharing photos of everyday people doing their thing. In what is still by many measures a small community, descendants often pop up in the comments.

“There was one old photo of someone working at the Record-Eagle, I don’t remember what he did there exactly, but someone came on and said ‘Hey, that’s my dad. I’ve never seen that photo before. How do I get a copy?’” he says. "That sort of thing is always fun."

But there’s also griping (of sorts). Hains couldn’t count on 100 hands the number of times someone has dropped a “those were the days/I miss the old Traverse City,”-type comment. As someone who’s seen a boatload of change in Traverse City over his own 80 years and then poured over thousands of photos from the prior 100 years, Hains doesn’t get fazed by such things.

“My perspective, especially as I've grown older, is that it's a rare person who welcomes change. Most people are very leery of it. I’m a little more pragmatic than some people, I guess,” he says. “Traverse City has changed. I don’t necessarily like some of the changes, but it is what it is.”

There have also been times Hains caught heat for sharing things that wouldn’t pass muster in this day and age, especially as it relates to race and gender (and from the blackface Rotary minstrel shows to the unfortunately named Squaw Point, Traverse City has some doozies to choose from). But history – warts and all – is something that must be learned from if it is to have value, Hains says.

“You shouldn’t be re-writing history. It is what it is, and you can’t change it,” he says. “Instead, take pride in the fact that we’ve come a long way since then.”

What’s historic, of course, is all relative. Hains recently had a realization of sorts that photos from the mid-to-late 20th century can generate just as much interest as those sepia-toned oldies, especially from younger people or those who have moved here relatively recently (which sometimes seems to be half of Traverse City).

“I need to remember that not everybody is as old as I am, because I'll see something from the 70s or 80s as I'm scrolling through the pictures, and I’ll say, ‘That’s not old.’  But then if I post it, somebody goes, ‘Oh my God, that's really different. Wow,’” he says. “So it’s all about perspective.”

Hains doesn't know how long he'll keep it up, but he knows that there's still plenty more to share. And the more history he can get out there, the better. 

 “If you know what was," he says, "it helps you to understand what is, and then possibly what will be.”