Tinley Park Library Puts Vintage Newspapers Online For Free

TINLEY PARK, IL — Say you want to see your grandmother's wedding announcement. Or what Bremen High School was like when it was built in 1953. Or maybe you want to see if the family legend about an uncle defrosting his gas pipe with a blow torch is true. The Tinley Park Public Library has those answers for you. And you won't have to search in a musty box of brittle newsprint to find them.

The library, through a partnership with Ancestry's Newspapers.com, has digitized its holdings of Tinley Park's local news sources from 1929 to 2009. The 400 reels of microfilm they were stored on are now fully searchable and accessible online.

It's a boon for researchers, teachers, genealogists and history buffs.

"You always have the historical society, of course," said Graham Dostal, the library's learning and technology coordinator. "But it's cool here because you can browse paper by paper, page by page."

And for free. To do that, you'll have to connect to the library’s WiFi or use one of the library’s computers. You'll find the collection at tplibrary.newspapers.com. However, if you buy a subscription at Newspapers.com, you can also access the papers there.

The oldest newspapers, including the Tinley Park Times and Tinley Park Herald Times are not a complete set. Some editions are missing.

These are what's in the library's holdings:

• Tinley Park Times (incomplete run 1/18/1929 to 1/6/1971
• Tinley Park Times Herald (incomplete run 5/23/1973 to 12/31/1975)
• Tinley Park Star Tribune (3/3/1974 to 1/1/1976)
• Tinley Park Star Herald (1/8/1976 to 10/1983)
• Tinley Park Star (11/1983 to 12/31/1992)
• Orland Park Star (9/3/1992 to 11/15/2007)
• Southtown Star (12/16/2007 to 12/31/2009)

Dostal said the library has vintage clippings of articles and other materials, as well as old phone books it plans to digitize, too. For now, however, patrons will have to search musty tomes or boxes for their research.

As for the man who tried to defrost a gas pipe? It's true. According to the Jan. 18, 1929 edition of the Tinley Park Times, Albert Brandau of Tinley Park used a blow torch to thaw a frozen gas pipe feed in his brother's car. But you'll have to go to the library and look up the story to find out what happens next.

The library is located at 7851 Timber Drive in Tinley Park.