As Traverse City commissioners prepare for a Monday study session that could decide the fate of the 110-year-old Carnegie building, the Ticker got an inside glimpse at perhaps the heart of the debate -- the city's Con Foster collection of more than 10,000 historic artifacts.

“It’s tough for me to speculate what the commissioners will vote on, but you can be assured they are willing to make some decisions on what should really happen with the building and ultimately the collection,” Mayor Michael Estes tells The Ticker.

The collection is locked away in the building’s basement, and has swollen over the decades to include many items central to the town’s past (founder Perry Hannah’s top hat) and thousands of relics that aren’t (books, jars, keys, guns, toys, and more).

The city is legally obligated to care for the collection and tasked its management to the History Center of Traverse City in 1992. The Center’s acting Executive Director Maddie Lundy gave The Ticker a tour of the locked collection, generally off limits to the public.

Shelves are packed with thousands of boxes and intriguing items: a colorful toy Ferris wheel, maybe from the 1893 World Fair; ancient wooden city sewer pipes; several antique typewriters; and an Indian statue that stood sentry in downtown TC for 40 years; a scale model of the former state hospital built by its patients; a box from Milliken’s department store; and a collection of antique guns, some as old as 200 years.

The collection also includes larger items housed in a rented storage unit.

Joining the tour is Steve Harold the History Center’s board chair, who explains the rub: Con Foster collected – and hundreds of individuals donated -- items from around North America, but the History Center’s mission is to exhibit only items with regional significance.

“I think that’s one of the key issues. What is the public interest (in the collection) and what is the city’s role in curating that?” asks City Manager Jered Ottenwess.

Harold would like to sell or donate or return thousands of items unrelated to the area, but it’s expensive and the process must meet legal standards. The items must be organized, then the commission must approve those items to be disposed of, and the original donor or family member must be found and offered the item(s) first.

Estes says a relative of Con Foster responded to a recent Ticker article on this topic -- a possible venue for disposal.

The commission will consider the History Center’s June proposal to manage and maintain the collection and building for about $124,000 annually -- tasks it now does for free in exchange for rent. The History Center no longer receives a city subsidy and is running in the red; it wants an answer by Sept. 30 and might even terminate its lease before year-end.

Meanwhile, representatives of the ArtCenter of Traverse City and the Crooked Tree Arts Center in Petoskey -- pondering a merger -- have talked to Ottwenwess about using most of the building, reserving 20 percent for the collection (though they have said they would not actively manage the Con Foster collection).

The mayor has proposed a separate board to oversee the building as a cultural center.

Harold is hoping the city commission, in its deliberations, will embrace the significance of the collection. “It is our heritage. It is us,” he says. “You cannot abandon this collection because Traverse City won’t have any idea of its history.”

The study session begins at 7pm Monday on the second floor of the Governmental Center.

For an inside glimpse of some of the Con Foster artifacts, click on the image at top.