Anywhere Adventures is Hitting the Road!

We’re on the hunt for two U.S. communities to include in Vivian Li’s Innovator in Residence Project, Anywhere Adventures! 

Visitors to the mobile experience are currently able to explore three American communities, Seattle, Chicago, and Southeastern Wyoming, through items from the Library’s digital collections and learn about the stories, people, and events that shaped everyday life in these places.    

With the site, visitors can do a deep dive of each locations’ local history through themes, such as transportation. In the travel log above, Vivian learned about the history of tugboats, specifically the  oldest wooden tugboat, the Arthur Foss, currently moored in Seattle’s Historic Ship Wharf. Similarly, Wyoming visitors can learn about the adoption of motor vehicles in Southeastern Wyoming by visiting the site of Lovejoy’s Novelty Works, the workshop of the first man to drive a motor vehicle in Wyoming. Chicago visitors can visit Canal Origins Park to learn how engineers reversed the course of the Chicago River. 

During the second and final year of the project, Vivian is inviting readers like you to nominate their own hometowns for inclusion in the project! 

When we launched in December, we asked readers to nominate their hometowns in the comments of that blog post and the nominations have been rolling in! So far, we’ve received the following nominations from regions across the U.S. 

Northeast  

• Providence Rhode Island – Katherine Minahan  

• Solvay, New York – John Montreal 

Mid-Atlantic 

• New Egypt, New Jersey – Ellie 

• Baltimore, Maryland – Amanda 

• Patterson, New Jersey – Audrey Fulcher 

• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Paul  

• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – Lisa 

Southeast 

• Charlottesville, Virginia and Albermarle County – C. Eisenberg 

• Pascagoula, Mississippi – Angel S. Padgett 

• Edgefield, South Carolina – Ashley 

• Durham or Asheville, North Carolina – Tori 

Northwest 

• Boise, Idaho and Treasure Valley – Rachel Welker 

• Canyon City, Oregon – James Valade 

West Coast 

• Camarillo, California – Mae 

• Santa Monica, California – AnnMaria De Mars 

Midwest 

• Kansas City, both of them! – Kelly Rawlings 

• Cleveland, Ohio – Robin 

• Sauk Rapids, Minnesota – John  

There’s now two weeks left to nominate your hometown as an Anywhere Adventures location and nominations will close on Friday, January 30th. If you think Anywhere Adventures should come to your hometown, leave a comment below! Comments from the previous post and this post will be combined into one pool of nominations.