Trombley House
house in Bay City, Michigan
The Trombley House (or Tromble House) was constructed as a house and trading post, and is now located at 901 John F. Kennedy. After being sent down the Saginaw River on a barge it is now located in Veterans Memorial Park in Bay City, Michigan. The building is also known as the Centre House (or Center House). It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. It is the oldest frame house still standing in Bay County.
History
Medor and Joseph Trombley, both French-Canadian fur traders, settled in the Saginaw Valley in the early 1830s and purchased large tracts of land along the Saginaw River between what is now Twenty-third Street and Cass Avenue in Bay City. In 1835, they began construction on this house, hiring Nathan C. Case, a carpenter, to construct it.
The house at that time was located on the east side of the river, at what is now 114-118 Webster Street. The house was completed in 1837. The Trombleys used the building as a house, as a place to conduct their trading business, and as an inn of sorts.
“Trombley House” enters the record as house in Bay City, Michigan. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Trombley, House and house can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Trombley House” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Trombley, House and house provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q48834867. Authority coordinates are 43.591, -83.900. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1973, 1835 and 1837.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Trombley House”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Trombley House primary sources, Trombley House archive and Trombley research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Trombley House”?
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- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Trombley House” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.