“A2 SmartTours” was created by the Ann Arbor Bicentennial Tours Committee. Fifteen self-guided tours commemorate the city, its growth, and its development over two centuries and into the future. SmartTours, created for use on smartphones, are varied and include historic neighborhoods, special campus sites, walking and hiking tours, and even a scavenger tour.
The SmartTours committee was chaired by Norman Tyler (tylertopics.com) and included Tom Stulberg (co-chair), Paul Conway, Susan Wineberg, Christine Crockett, Carol Mull, Fran Wright, Ilene Tyler, and graphic designer Don Hammond. The Ann Arbor District Library hosts the SmartTours website and intends to keep it active indefinitely.
Information on many of the tour site narratives come from the book, Historic Ann Arbor: An Architectural Guide (2014), written by Susan Wineberg and Patrick McCauley. The current edition is an indispensable resource describing over four hundred Ann Arbor structures, some of which no longer exist. The Old West Side Tour comes from the Old West Side Neighborhood Association. The Old Fourth Ward and Division Street Tours come from the Old Fourth Ward Historic Neighborhood Association. The A2 Modern Tour is based on the A2Modern.org web site. The Historically Black Neighborhood Tour comes from a partnership between the African American Cultural & Historical Museum of Washtenaw County and the Ann Arbor District Library (aachm.org and aadl.org). The Underground Railroad Tour comes primarily from research by Carol Mull for her book, The Underground Railroad in Michigan. The Street Exhibits Tour is extracted from Downtown Ann Arbor Historical Street Exhibit Program hosted online by the Ann Arbor District Library (aadl.org/aastreets). The Riverwalks Tour is taken from Brenda Bentley’s book, Riverwalks.
Credits for photographs on the various tours are embedded with each photo. Historical pictures of Ann Arbor buildings were drawn from the collections of the UofM Bentley Historical Library and the Ann Arbor District Library. Contemporary photographs were taken in 2023 by Norman and Ilene Tyler.