Marshall Elementary School and the Smith Library of Regional History are working to digitally preserve old photographs and other memorabilia from the soon-to-be-demolished elementary school and the even older Hanover Township School.

As Marshall’s staff began preparing to move to a new school to be built adjacent to the old structure, the staff found a variety of old photographs, including class photos and other scenes from the Hanover Township School, dating back to the 1940s and 1950s.

In addition to more than 25 photos, Marshall also is preserving more than 40 trophies from the old Hanover school athletic teams.

The Hanover Township School was built in 1916 and operated until 1983 on State Route 130. A teacher by the name of Maude Marshall taught at Hanover Township School and dedicated 51 years to serving the community through education. She taught in the district from 1903-1954.

When the district built a new elementary school in the 1960s, the district decided to name it after Marshall. When Hanover Township School was demolished in the 1980s, Talawanda School District officials moved the photos and trophies to Marshall Elementary for safekeeping. Now that a new Marshall is being built and is scheduled to open this fall, the old Marshall building is to be demolished this summer.

To preserve the array of photographs, Marshall Elementary partnered with Smith Library of Regional History to digitize the pictures. The original copies will be displayed in the Hanover Township Community Building and digitized copies will be available online for free.

The faculty decided to digitize the photos because the new Marshall Elementary building doesn’t have the wall space to display the pictures in a publicly accessible area.

“Community members are happy that the photos will be preserved and on display in the Hanover Township Community Building,” said Chad Hinton, principal at Marshall.

For community members who attended Hanover Township School, this offers a way for them to look back at old memories from their teenage years.

Although the photos will be removed from Marshall’s walls, the trophies will remain in the new building.

“We have space for the trophy case in our gym area and so the trophies will remain on display at Marshall in that area,” said Hinton.

The photos are set to be picked up next week and taken to the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. That library is one of four digitization hubs in Ohio, according to Brad Spurlock, manager of Smith Library of Regional History.

Smith Library is acting as the middleman in this undertaking, said Spurlock. He is transporting the photos from the school to the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County and making the collection available online in Lane Libraries public catalog.

“These photos are important because they show class photos for a community school that no longer exists, in addition to being highly valuable for researching a variety of topics,” Spurlock said.

Research topics include local school history, the history of Hanover Township, genealogy and family histories, according to Spurlock.

“It is just really cool to give people the opportunity to recognize their relatives, neighbors, friends, etc. that might be pictured in the photos,” he said.

Hinton and Spurlock said they hope this project elicits fond memories from alumni of Hanover Township School and allows them access to their pictures.

When the project is completed later this spring you will be able to visit www.lanepl.org to see the completed digitized collection.