This Month in Rochester History

Fifty years ago this month, Rochester residents learned that they would soon be saying goodbye to a treasured local business that had been a Main Street fixture for 65 years.  The owners of Burr's Hardware announced that they were selling out and retiring, ending their long run as hardware merchants that had started in 1899.

In that year, a young Macomb County entrepreneur named George Burr had established a hardware and farm implement store on Main Street.  His store was located for several years on the east side of Main, in the former Joseph Reimer building at 418 S. Main.  Having outgrown that location after his first decade in business, he built a brand new brick block across the street at 429 S. Main  and moved his store there in late 1914.

In 1922, George Burr retired from the business he had founded and passed the management of the store to his daughter, Neva, and her husband, Ward Crissman.  Burr died in 1934 and Ward Crissman died suddenly in 1935; at that time, Neva Crissman brought her own daughter, Arlene, and son-in-law Leon Robertson into the business, and they continued to manage it until they decided to close the hardware store and sell the building in June 1965.

Green's Artist Supply opened at 429 S. Main in late summer 1965, and celebrates its 50th anniversary in that location this year.