Remembering Rochester

This Month in Rochester History

2012-02-01T07:00:00.020-05:00

February 1962 was a quiet month in Rochester. Not much was happening, except that there was a lot more snow on the ground than we have today. One thing that did make the front page of the newspaper was the school board's decision to spend $19,000 to install language labs in the high school and the two junior high schools, Central and West. The audio equipment for the labs was purchased from the Dictaphone Corporation. Up until the beginning of the 1961-62 school year, Rochester students were only offered two years of foreign language instruction, and they had their choice of French or German. The district added a third year of instruction to the curriculum in 1961-62, and after ordering the language labs, planned to offer a fourth year beginning in 1962-63.

I remember sitting in the language lab at Rochester High School, practicing phrases played on a state-of-the-art reel-to-reel tape deck. Anybody else?

The Strange Story of the McDonald/Harger Family

2012-01-28T06:00:00.003-05:00

K.D. and Maria McDonald Harger family ca. 1912.

The grave of Benjamin Fowler McDonald in Mount Avon Cemetery doesn't particularly stand out from those surrounding it. The New Jersey native and descendant of the Axford family was born in 1825 and came to Michigan in pioneer days, like many young men of his generation, where he farmed in Avon Township and reared his children. Nothing odd there either, unless you know that through the descendants of Benjamin F. McDonald, Rochester is linked in a way to a bizarre and grisly murder story that played out in New York City in 1945.

McDonald's daughter, Maria, was born in Avon Township in 1861. She attended the University of Michigan and was graduated with the class of 1887. Two years later, in Rochester, she married a young lawyer from West Bloomfield Township named K.D. Harger. The newly-married Hargers relocated to Riverside, California, where K.D. Harger served as postmaster and as an officer of a title and abstract company, and Maria Harger taught school. Two sons, Donald and Solon Burt, were born to the Hargers in California.

The younger son, known as Burt, showed an aptitude for ballet and other forms of dance at an early age. He began winning dance competitions in his youth. As an adult, he relocated to New York City, where he achieved relative fame as an adagio dancer, partnering at first with Helen Howell and later with Charlotte Maye. While he was fairly well known in the ballrooms of New York City during the 1930s and early 1940s, Harger became the talk of the town in August 1945 when he mysteriously vanished without a trace at the age of 39.

Harger was reported missing initially by his dancing partner, Charlotte Maye, when he failed to appear for a planned performance at the Biltmore Hotel on August 19. A police investigation turned up no leads for three days, until a dismembered torso washed up on a Queens beach and a few days after that, an arm and a leg were fished out of the Hudson River. A postmortem identified the remains as those of Burt Harger, and determined that death had been likely been caused by hammer blows. At this point, Harger's name was screaming from lurid headlines across the country, as newspapers carried stories about what they were calling the "Torso Murder Case."

Various clues led police back to the apartment that Harger had shared with a roommate, Walter H. Dahl, Jr. Under interrogation, Dahl admitted that he had killed Harger with a hammer during an argument, then dismembered the body in the bathtub of the apartment, before packaging the remains in several towels. Dahl then carried his gruesome bundles, one at a time, aboard the Staten Island and Weehawken ferries, where he dropped them over the rail.

Dahl was charged with murder, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison, where he died three years later. His motive, according to later memoirs of those who investigated the case, was jealousy, as he and Harger were said to have been lovers who quarreled bitterly after Harger had abruptly announced his engagement to a woman. The Burt Harger story didn't end there, however. The next tenant in the apartment where Harger's murder had taken place was a young playwright named Ken Parker. Fascinated by the case, Parker penned a play about the murder entitled Four Flights Up (later retitled There's Always A Murder) which had modest success in off-Broadway venues.

In an interesting side note, the cremated remains of K.D. Harger, Maria McDonald Harger and S. Burt Harger are all inurned in the Cathedral Mausoleum of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (originally called Hollywood Memorial Park) in Los Angeles. This cemetery was founded in 1899, and later sold off part of its property to Paramount Studios, which now abut the cemetery on one side. The cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of the many show business personalities buried there.

The photo shown here is from the local history collection of the Rochester Hills Public Library. Seen from left to right are: Phoebe Burt McDonald Parker (mother of Maria McDonald Harger), Donald Harger, K.D. Harger, Maria McDonald Harger, and S. Burt Harger.

Digging Up Our History

2012-01-21T06:00:00.043-05:00

If you live in the Rochester area, you're probably well aware that the long-planned reconstruction of Main Street in downtown Rochester will kick off this spring. The roadway will be closed for several months while it is excavated to allow the replacement of aged infrastructure, after which a new roadbed and streetscape will be built. With all of the digging that will be going on, it is a near certainty that some interesting artifacts will be unearthed, and I'm looking forward to seeing what items from our history have been preserved under the roadway since it was first paved in 1916. This past week, I ran across a small news item from 108 years ago that reminds us that anything is possible when one starts digging. On July 15, 1904, the Rochester Era had this to report:

The old cannon which disappeared years ago has been found. It was dug up by workmen engaged in digging a sewer in the rear of the F.H. Burr block, occupied by Wood & Co., where it had been buried deep in the ground. The big gun disappeared the day after a memorable Fourth of July celebration of the night before, eight or nine years ago, when a "bunch" of kindred spirits had a gala night with a big wheelbarrow load of booze to celebrate with and the old cannon to awake the echoes.

Something worthy of study is bound to be rediscovered here, so stay tuned, and don't stay away from downtown Rochester because of the construction. Rather, go downtown because of the construction - it will be a learning experience for all of us.

At Home in Rochester: Oscar F. Comstock House

2012-01-14T10:21:00.001-05:00

For more than a half century, the house at 203 Walnut Street has been a dental office, but before it was converted to professional office use, it served as the private residence of some of Rochester's prominent citizens. Oscar F. Comstock, a local carpenter, bought the property in the spring of 1874 and started building his house in September of that year. When it was finished, Comstock sold the house to Lorenzo D. Morse, a businessman and developer who later built the 1881 Morse Block on Main Street. (Not long after, Morse built another home for himself nearby at 311 Walnut, which was later purchased by William Clark Chapman and moved to 311 Pine Street when Chapman decided to build a new home in 1916.)

Meanwhile, the house at 203 Walnut was sold to Arthur E. Collins, a merchant and banker whose business was located in the Morse Block. Collins was well-known in Rochester and had the misfortune of becoming somewhat unpopular for a time. Born in Malta because his father had been a British military officer, Collins himself served in the 22nd Michigan Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. He was wounded at Chickamauga, taken prisoner, and sent to the infamous Andersonville prison. After the war, he was a grocery and dry goods merchant in Rochester and also operated a private bank from his store. Managing a bank was apparently not in Collins' skill set, however; in 1908, the newspapers were full of stories about the padlocking of the bank after it was found that liabilities exceeded assets by greater than $8,000, and Collins lacked even enough funds to pay the filing fee on his bankruptcy petition.

A few months after his banking disaster, Collins sold his home at 203 Walnut to another prominent Rochester man and fellow Civil War veteran, John J. Snook. Snook was ready to retire to the village of Rochester from his vast Overlook farm at the corner of Rochester and Avon roads, where he had been known as "Snook of Overlook." He also bore the title of "Poet Laureate of Rochester" and had published several volumes of his verse (click here if you'd like to read some).

The house at 203 Walnut remained in the hands of the Snook family until 1954, when it was sold to Dr. John S. Terry. Dr. Terry converted the house to dental offices, and practiced there until he retired. He was succeeded at the location by Dr. Walter J. Kubinski, whose offices are currently in the house that Comstock built.

You may read about the historic Comstock house in the Oakland Regional Historic Sites database by clicking here.

Bygone Business: Mitzelfeld's

2012-01-07T07:00:00.008-05:00

If you drive down the east alley behind 312 S. Main Street, you'll see this black-and-white striped canopy covering the rear entrance to the building. For people who have lived in Rochester for a while, those signature stripes say "Mitzelfeld's," even though the beloved department store closed its doors in January 2004 after a 54-year run. The company that became known as Mitzelfeld's started out as Leslie Eggleston's department store in 1939, and after his daughter, Diana, and William Mitzelfeld were married, the young couple joined the business. A new building was opened on the east side of Main between Third and Fourth in 1949, and the store was known as Eggleston-Mitzelfeld's before eventually becoming known simply as Mitzelfeld's. William and Diana Mitzelfeld later passed the management of the store to their sons, Brad and Monty, and the store was known for its high quality merchandise and the personalized customer service that was the hallmark of the family-owned business.

Did you shop at Mitzelfeld's?

This Month in Rochester History

2012-01-01T06:00:00.049-05:00

Happy 2012, Remembering Rochester Readers! Fifty years ago this month, Rochester citizens were attending a public open house at the newly-organized Rochester Aerosol Corporation. The company was located in the industrial facility at 607 Woodward Street that is the home of the Dillman & Upton lumber yard today. The building, which had been expanded several times since its original construction in 1919-20, had previously housed the Rochester Foundry Company and Oakland Foundry & Machine. It was idle in late 1961 when the Rochester Area Development Company (RADCO) and a Small Business Administration loan assisted in bringing Rochester Aerosol to the village - along with the promise of 50 local jobs.

On January 18, 1962, Michigan governor John B. Swainson and local dignitaries toured the new facility, which would package non-food aerosol products such as hair spray, home cleaning and maintenance items, insecticides, shave creams, and pharmaceuticals. Rochester Aerosol was the first major aerosol packager in the Detroit area, and handled most of the packaging for the Detroit-Chicago market. The company president was Robert A. Willihnganz.

Driver Education the Old-Fashioned Way

2011-12-31T06:00:00.049-05:00

New Year's Eve seems like an appropriate time for this post. When I was enrolled in a driver education course at Rochester High School in the mid-1970s, the instructors used a "scared straight" method of impressing upon their students the importance of safe, sober driving. Their instrument of choice was a film entitled Mechanized Death, (click the link if you remember this and would like to see it again!) which was gory enough to make some of the queasier fledgling drivers forget about wanting to get behind the wheel at all. The film hit home for a lot of students because in the community of Rochester, one had only to drive down Main Street and turn west on Second to see three-dimensional proof of the hazards of inattentive, reckless or impaired driving.

Shown in this snapshot from 1962 is part of the Byers wrecker yard, located directly behind the Byers Shell gas station that stood on the northwest corner of Main & Second. When a Byers tow truck was called to clear up the scene of automotive mayhem, the mangled metal carcasses were usually deposited on their lot behind the gas station, along Second Street between Main and the west alley, where they were on display for all of the town to see and contemplate. In a small community such as Rochester, the details about the resulting injuries or deaths circulated quickly. I imagine that more than one Rochester parent used a cruise past the Byers lot as a teachable moment.

In this photo, the camera is looking southeasterly from the northeast corner of Second Street and the west alley. The Texaco station and auto repair shop that is seen on the southwest corner of Main and Second is now the location of the Shehrzad restaurant. The two houses shown in the background at left are now the location of the Quik Pik and Penn Station East Coast Subs store; the Village Cleaners building is seen in the background at center right.

Do you remember, Rochester?

Memory's Eye: Michigan Central Railroad Bridge

2011-12-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

This bridge over Paint Creek east of the old Western Knitting Mills (now Rochester Mills Brewery) is an important local landmark. Having been in place for over a century, it is said to be one of the oldest remaining concrete arch bridges in Michigan. The Michigan Central Railroad originally built this bridge to carry its tracks across Paint Creek near the Western Knitting Mills dam and mill pond. This view, which looks westward from the east bank of Paint Creek behind the Royal Park Hotel, shows a current view of the bridge on the left, stitched together with a circa 1907 postcard view of the same scene. In the vintage image at right, the Western Knitting Mills dam and mill pond are visible. The area once covered by the mill pond was filled after a devastating flood in 1946, and today is the site of the Sunrise Senior Living complex, post office, and public library. In 2008-2009, the Rochester Downtown Development Authority funded a rehabilitation project for the historic bridge, and it is now a pleasant pedestrian walkway that is part of the recreational trail system.

You Might Be From Rochester If...

2011-12-17T06:00:00.018-05:00

With a nod to Jeff Foxworthy, here's a list of things you might remember if you grew up in Rochester. Feel free to add your own in the comments!

You might be from Rochester if...

you know where Bare A-- Beach was
you remember when going to McDonald's meant a trip all the way to Pontiac
you partied at the Haven
you got your milk from Joe Case's dairy truck
you liked shopping in the D&C because the floors were squeaky
you distributed show bills for the Hills Theatre
you remember when the town bowling alley was in the basement of a building on Main Street
you got all of your pairs of “school shoes” from Jack Burr at B-Z Bootery
you remember the Slaughterhouse Five controversy
you wore lederhosen - or a dirndl - to dance in the Maifest
you made an inner-tube raft for the Floatable Boatable
you got kicked off the ice at the municipal pond for playing crack-the-whip
you were scared of the River Gang
you were in the River Gang
you ate at the Big Boy drive-in on North Main next to the Dairy Queen
you bought penny candy at Rochester Junction
you know where the Sinclair station was
you painted “The Rock” at least once
you know what business Frank St. Onge was in
you played the pinball machine at Cunningham's – for a dime
you remember when part of the South Hill bridge collapsed
you know why it was fun to drive really fast over the old Elizabeth St. bridge

Main Street Stories Now Available in Book Form

2011-12-10T06:00:00.020-05:00

If you enjoy the Main Street Stories posts on this blog, or you're searching for just the right Christmas present for someone with a Rochester connection, you'll be happy to know that a softcover book entitled Remembering Rochester: Main Street Stories is now available for only $9. The collected stories - with a new introduction - have been published by the Rochester Avon Historical Society to coincide with the upcoming reconstruction of Main Street during the summer of 2012. Remembering Rochester is proud to be a part of this effort to further local history education in our community.

Copies of Remembering Rochester: Main Street Stories are available at Lytle Pharmacy in downtown Rochester and may also be purchased through the RAHS web site at www.rochesteravonhistoricalsociety.org. One hundred percent of the profits from the sale of the book will benefit the history education and historic preservation programs of the Rochester Avon Historical Society.

Nothing Important Changes

2011-12-03T06:00:00.014-05:00

A wise person once said, "History repeats itself because nobody was listening the first time." In support of that thesis, I offer this item from the Rochester Clarion issue of April 15, 1962, quoted in its entirety and without further commentary:

MILLER ANGERED OVER BRIDGE APPROPRIATION
Avon Township Supervisor Cy Miller sharply criticized the Ways and Means Committee of the Oakland County Board of Supervisors Tuesday for the manner in which they handled an appropriation for road and bridge improvements on Avon and Livernois Rds.
Miller said Wednesday however, that he expected the money would be made available at a meeting of the board scheduled for next Monday.
According to Miller, the supervisors approved an expenditure of $364,000 to set up airport planning and improvements on a 445-acre plot in Orion Township which is proposed as the core of a 3000-acre major airport.
Because of the expenditure, the $100,000 which was to be appropriated for the Avon Township road work, plus $200,000 for the South Oakland Health Center, was unavailable. Both the road and health center appropriations had been recommended by the Oakland County Board of Auditors.
Miller said Wednesday that he expected the full board to pass a proposal for road funds for the bridge by an extra levy of one 20th of a mill next Monday. If passed, the proposal would bring in $108,000 for the project.

This Month in Rochester History

2011-12-01T06:00:00.011-05:00

Rochester was watching a house on the move fifty years ago this month. A two-story residence containing four apartments that stood at 330 Walnut Street was relocated to the north end of town to allow for the construction of Rochester's very first drive-through banking facility. The house was moved to a new location at 313 Woodward, where it still stands today. Officials of the National Bank of Detroit began preparing the site for the new bank building almost immediately, which was planned to be connected to the main bank building at Fourth & Main by a tunnel that crossed beneath the West Alley.

Subdivision Stories: Oakdale

2011-11-25T20:08:00.000-05:00

The Oakdale subdivision was platted in 1915 by John William Hopkins and his wife, Elizabeth Lehner Hopkins, on a village outlot lying west of Wilcox Street and south of Fifth (now University Drive). Hopkins was a fire captain with the Detroit Fire Department, and upon his retirement in 1916, he and his wife relocated from Detroit to Rochester. The new subdivision lay between the existing streets of Wilcox and Castell, and was bisected by a new street, named Wesley. Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins reserved for themselves a triple lot fronting on Fifth Street and built a new bungalow-style residence on it. That house still stands today at 623 W. University, and is still on the triple lot, which gives the property extra frontage along University Drive.

At Home in Rochester: Lorenzo D. Morse House

2011-11-18T21:37:00.000-05:00

In the summer of 1880, a farmer and businessman named Lorenzo D. Morse came from Lapeer with a plan to build a new brick business block on Main Street in Rochester. At the same time, he contracted for a large residence on Walnut Street, next to the Congregational Church. The house was built for Morse by contractor John Ross, who was responsible for the construction of many of Rochester's well-known 19th century structures, including the Rochester Elevator, the Universalist Church, the Congregational Church, and the William Deats house. According to a news item in the Rochester Era in June 1880, Lorenzo Morse himself was responsible for the design of his new house, which cost $2,470. The newspaper praised the building as being "first-class."

Morse and his wife lived in the home at 311 Walnut Street for just over a decade, and then moved to Detroit. Lorenzo Morse sold his house in 1892 to Joseph Partello, who was superintendent of the woolen mill at that time. When Western Knitting Mills took over the woolen mill in 1894, Partello sold the house to William Clark Chapman, the newly-arrived secretary and treasurer of the company. The following year Chapman made several improvements to the house, including the addition of a wrap-around porch, which is visible in the 1907 view of the house that is shown here.

In 1916, Chapman and his wife decided to build a new house at their Walnut Street location, so they moved the former Morse house and relocated it on another lot that they owned at 311 Pine Street, directly behind their Walnut Street lot. The Lorenzo D. Morse house still stands today at 311 Pine Street, and is now 131 years old.

Memory's Eye: Water Street

2011-11-11T15:30:00.000-05:00

When Western Knitting Mills was at the height of its importance as Rochester's principal employer, the company recruited workers - mostly young and female - from all over the Midwest. To provide housing for this labor force, WKM built boarding houses along Water Street, directly south of and adjacent to the factory building. The first one went up in 1912 and was quickly expanded to accommodate the growing workforce. The buildings were torn down in the 1940s after McAleer Manufacturing took over the property, but here's a mashup of a current photo of the streetscape and a vintage photo of the same view, showing the boarding houses. The next time you travel down Water Street, just imagine what the scene looked like a century ago!

Main Street Stories: Lewis Ward Curtis Building

2011-11-05T06:00:00.004-04:00

Hitching posts are long gone from Rochester's Main Street, but the town has had a western wear and tack shop at 315 S. Main for over half a century. Dr. Lewis Ward Curtis had this one-story double business block built in 1935 as an income property. Dr. Curtis was a 1902 graduate of the University of Michigan College of Dentistry, and after receiving his degree he returned to his home in Rochester to establish his dental practice. By 1907, he was successful enough to build a new brick building at 307 S. Main Street, which housed his offices on the second floor and provided retail space on the first floor. In 1927, he expanded his Main Street holdings to include the property at 315-317 S. Main.

The site had long been the location of a two-story frame building housing a variety store, originally known as the Newberry building. Anna Newberry sold the old structure to Morris M. Gardner in 1913, and he operated a store there for about a decade before selling to Harry Steinberg in 1925. Dr. Curtis bought the property from Steinberg in 1927 and eight years later razed the old building to make way for a modern, one-story structure.

In October 1935 the Rochester Clarion described the new building:

L.H. Aris, owner and manager of The Variety Store, Rochester's 5c to $5 store for a number of years, will move his entire stock of goods into new quarters in the Dr. L.W. Curtis building at 315 Main street in the next few days.
The Curtis building with the combination red brick and green and black tile front is one of the newer additions to Rochester's Main street. Under the supervision of Carl VandenBerghe, local contractor, the building was completed last weekend.
A double entrance has been made to the store. The front display windows have been partitioned off into three sections. The interior of the building has been covered with Celotex, beautifully designed on both ceiling and walls. Available floor space will accommodate space for display, tables and racks.
In the rear of the building is a large store room. The building is air conditioned, using a blower in the hot air furnace.

Aris sold his store in July 1953 to Donald Butcher, who operated it as Butcher's Variety Store. Bonnie & Charlie Becker opened the B-Bar-B Western Supply at 315 S. Main in 1957. In 1974, the Beckers sold the store to Jerry Leannais, who opened the Arizona Saddlery there.

This Month in Rochester History

2011-11-01T06:00:00.026-04:00

Fifty years ago this month, Rochester was talking about a group of seven boys who had gone on an unusual joy ride. Seems the seven young lads, who were between the ages of 13 and 16, decided to avail themselves of a small railroad flatcar and take a trip from Rochester to Pontiac on the Grand Trunk tracks. According to newspaper reports, as they were pushing the car all the way to Pontiac and back, the police were notified that the boys were missing. When it was discovered what they had done (and before it was known that they had, in fact, already made their way safely back to Rochester), train traffic on the Grand Trunk line was slowed to avoid a possible collision with the intrepid band.

It was afterward learned that the idea for the jaunt had come from two boys who were facing an upcoming hearing in juvenile court, and had talked the other five into the escapade. The Clarion did not publish the names of the wayward ones, but it has now been half a century since the event, so if any of you are out there, you may confess!

Main Street Stories: Rochester Clarion Building

2011-10-29T06:00:00.064-04:00

Clarion building as it appeared in the 1940s.

The front of the building at 313 S. Main is inscribed with the date 1898, but that year has no true significance in its construction history. In 1898, Charles Sumner Seed of Cass City, Michigan, was invited to Rochester by school superintendent Abram L. Craft. Craft hoped that his acquaintance would establish a newspaper in town, and the first edition of the weekly Rochester Clarion rolled off the press in August of that year. C. S. Seed opened his newspaper office at 424 S. Main, in a building that has long since been torn down and replaced, but in September 1899 his wife, Frances, purchased the John J. Blinn harness shop on the other side of the street. The couple then moved the Clarion's office and printing plant to that location, numbered 313 S. Main.

The former Blinn building was a frame structure, and housed Blinn's harness shop from 1891 to 1899 before the Clarion moved there. In 1933, after 35 years in that location, the Seed family completely rebuilt the Clarion building in two phases. According to Charles S. Seed's 1946 memoir, published in the Clarion:

The present building was built in two sections. Work was started in 1933 on the rear part, or printing plant, and the front section, or office, was completed in 1935. The building was the first of its kind in Rochester, and is said to be the first one in Oakland county to have a modern vitrolite glass front.

Vitrolite was an opaque glass, popular in Art Deco style buildings at the time, but it was fragile and easily broken. The Vitrolite face on the Clarion building lasted into the early 1960s, when it was replaced with brick. The newspaper itself lasted until October 1997, when it was absorbed by its rival, the Rochester Eccentric, after 99 years of publication as an independent paper.

New History Database Has Many Stories to Tell

2011-10-22T13:29:00.002-04:00

Have you ever passed by an old building and wondered about the history behind it? Ever thought, “Wow, if those walls could talk, what stories would they tell?” Most of our older structures do not have markers or monuments standing in front of them to place them in historical context for us. As part of its commitment to expanding local history education opportunities, Rochester Avon Historical Society has addressed this need in our area by developing and launching a brand new online database called Oakland Regional Historic Sites.

This new resource plots historic structures on a Google map, and also allows for searching by street address or property ID number. Clicking on a site pinned to the map, or clicking on a property ID in search results will open a history sheet that provides details such as who built a structure and when, its architectural features, changes made through the years, names of former occupants, references, and any historic designations the property may have received. A photo light box available on each property record includes a current view of the structure along with historic views, when available.

Currently, the Rochester Avon Historical Society, Rochester Historical Commission, and Rochester Hills Historic District Commission are collaborating to enter data for the project, but Rochester Avon Historical Society has designed the project with a regional focus in mind and is hopeful that other neighboring communities will be interested in joining the effort and listing their own historic properties in the database.

As of this writing, the new database contains only a portion of the many structures in Rochester and Rochester Hills that are eligible for inclusion. A structure must be at least 75 years old to be included, unless it is a memorial or monument, or is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, in which case it may be included even though it has not reached the age of 75 years. Members of the Rochester Avon Historical Society and its partner organizations are continuing to add records to the database, and the content will steadily increase and improve as time goes on.

This new resource is designed to answer questions for real estate professionals who might be looking for an historic property, civil engineers who need information on prior uses of a building or site, government and planning officials who rely on historical context to make sound decisions, members of the media who are seeking background information on a building or place in the community, and the just plain curious history buff who likes to know the story of the community around him. Whatever your personal interest is, I think you will enjoy browsing Oakland Regional Historic Sites. Click the link, give it a try and let me know what you think!

Bygone Business: Rochester Bar-B-Q & Pizza

2011-10-15T06:00:00.033-04:00

Anyone who lived at the north end of Rochester during the 1960s and early 1970s probably remembers a small take-out store called Rochester Bar-B-Q & Pizza. James and Lorraine Schultz opened the establishment in a small, one-story building at 812 N. Main Street (just north of the Romeo and Main intersection) under the name Bar-B-Q Kitchen, in March 1963. The Rochester store was a franchise of a Detroit company called Bar-B-Q Kitchens, Inc. that had launched its first store in Port Austin six years earlier.

The menu at the Rochester Bar-B-Q Kitchen featured chicken, duck, turkey, ham, spare ribs, pork roll and strip steak. Pizza was added to the bill of fare later on, and the name was changed to Rochester Bar-B-Q & Pizza. The little store suffered a couple of fires, and was gone by the mid-1970s. The building has long since been torn down.

My mother remembers that the Bar-B-Q Kitchen had really great cole slaw. Anybody else remember eating here?

"Emmy Night" for the Rochester Avon Historical Society

2011-10-08T06:00:00.036-04:00

I'm told it was like Emmy Awards night for the Rochester Avon Historical Society a couple of weeks ago when the Historical Society of Michigan held its 2011 awards banquet during the 137th Annual Meeting and State History Conference held September 23-25 in Traverse City. The banquet was the venue for the presentation of the State History Awards, the highest recognition presented by the state's official historical society. Each year the Historical Society of Michigan presents a State History Award to those individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the appreciation and understanding of Michigan history. Excellence of achievement by an individual or organization in the collection, preservation and promotion of state and local history is recognized. Seventeen awards were presented this year in a variety of categories.

The 2011 Local Society Award was presented to the Rochester Avon Historical Society, in recognition of the group's overall efforts in local history education and historic preservation, but specifically for its leadership in restoring the 1938 Marvin Beerbohm mural in the Rochester Community Schools Administration building, and for successfully nominating the Rochester Elevator to the National Register of Historic Places, among other recent projects.

The 2011 Distinguished Volunteer Service Award was presented to RAHS president Rod Wilson, in recognition of his outstanding leadership, not only within the Rochester Avon Historical Society, but in the community at large. This well-deserved award tells the entire state what we in the Rochester area already know about Rod Wilson: that he has an uncanny ability to motivate people, blend individual talents into a workable team, and push important community projects to completion, all while wearing a top hat and tails and explaining why Water Street curves as it passes in front of the Elevator!

Congratulations to Rod Wilson and to all of the hard-working members of the Rochester Avon Historical Society!

This Month in Rochester History

2011-10-01T06:00:00.048-04:00

Fifty years ago this month, the local newspaper was reporting that the community's oldest congregation, the First Congregational Church of Rochester, was moving into its new home at 1315 N. Pine St. Dedication services for the new campus were held on October 8, 1961, and parishioners began a new chapter in their history after worshiping in the same building at the corner of Third & Walnut streets for 107 years.

Not only is this congregation the oldest in Rochester, having been organized in 1827, but it is also the first and oldest congregation of its denomination in Michigan. The Rev. W. Isaac Ruggles, a circuit-riding missionary in what was then the Michigan territory, started the congregation with ten members who met in a log cabin south of the village of Rochester. In 1853, the Congregationalists built on the northwest corner of Third & Walnut and continued to meet at that location for over a century.

After the new church campus opened in the fall of 1961, the old church building on Walnut Street was sold. It was the home of the Rochester Elks lodge for a short time, and then suffered the indignity of being covered with a faux-castle facade and painted purple. The exterior has now been restored and the historic building currently houses a design firm.

At Home in Rochester: Joseph Reimer House

2011-09-24T06:00:00.047-04:00

Rochester hardware merchant Joseph Reimer built this Italianate Victorian style house at 211 Walnut Street in the summer of 1878 as his personal family residence. Reimer was born in Pennsylvania in 1826 and lived in Upper Mount Bethel township in Northampton County. Several of his neighbors in that Pennsylvania community also emigrated to Rochester in the mid-19th century, including Azariah Ross, John Ross, Reuben Immick, Francis Stofflet, Dr. William Deats, and Elias Butts.

Joseph Reimer served briefly in the Civil War as the captain of a company in the 153rd Pennsylvania volunteer regiment. When the war was over, he moved with his wife and four children to Rochester and established a hardware business. In 1878, he built this house on Walnut Street and in 1885 he built a brand-new brick building at 418 S. Main Street to house his store. (The hardware store building still stands today and is now the home of the Sumo Sushi restaurant. Reimer sold his hardware to his son, Cyrus, and son-in-law, Alvin Bliss, in 1886; eventually, Harvey J. Taylor bought them out and moved the store to 335 S. Main. Then, Charles W. Case bought out Taylor and the hardware firm became known as Case's Hardware.) Reimer also served the community as a member of the school board for Avon District #5, and as a justice of the peace.

Joseph Reimer died in 1896 and in 1917 his heirs sold the Walnut Street home to Elizabeth Butts Casey and her mother, Julia Bromley Butts. The two women divided the house into apartments and used it as both a residence and an income property. After Elizabeth Butts Casey Case died in 1973, her daughter Della Casey Wilson inherited the property, and when her heirs sold it in 1995, it had been in the Casey/Case family for 78 years, more than twice the number of years that the Reimer family owned it. The house is currently vacant.

Memory's Eye: First Baptist Church

2011-09-17T06:00:00.025-04:00

Today's the Memory's Eye camera looks at the former First Baptist Church building on the northwest corner of Walnut and Fourth streets, currently the home of the Village Shoe Inn. In 1855, the First Baptist Church of Rochester, which had been formed in Stoney Creek, purchased an unfinished wood frame building from the Christian Church Society and moved it to this corner in the village of Rochester. The congregation used the building, with numerous alterations and expansions over the years, until 1973, when a new campus was opened on Orion Road. The former church building on Walnut was sold and became the home of the Village Shoe Inn.

When I was growing up, the brick veneer on this building was painted white, and a pink neon sign over the front door glowed day and night with the words "Jesus Saves." This mashup view was composed using a recent photo as the background and a ca. 1940 postcard view of the same building displayed on the tablet screen.

Main Street Stories: Knapp's Dairy Bar

2011-09-03T06:00:00.003-04:00

Knapp's Dairy Bar at 304 S. Main Street has been in the same business - operated by the same family - from the very first day it opened its doors to the public. Lyle "Red" Knapp started in the restaurant business in Rochester in the 1930s, in a location that was part of the building now occupied by the Kruse & Muer on Main eatery. After that business was sold, Red and his wife, Cecelia, built their new dairy bar on a vacant lot next to the Home Bakery building. They held the grand opening of their restaurant on July 8, 1950, and announced in the newspaper that they would hand out free ice cream cones to all customers, regardless of age, for a four hour period. "We know we have the finest ice cream that money can buy and we want every person to taste it," Red Knapp told the Rochester Clarion. The dairy bar featured ice cream made by the Mints Ice Cream Company of Birmingham, and the Knapps hoped that the grand opening giveaway would hook their new Rochester customers on the sweet treat.

Not to be outdone, the Avon Dairy announced in the following week's Clarion that it had a new, exclusive formula ice cream called "Wood's Old Fashioned," sold only at the dairy bar located at 606 Woodward Street!

Over time, of course, it was the Knapps' signature hamburger that made their little restaurant locally famous and a favorite of generations of Rochester citizens - none of whom need to consult a menu before ordering at the counter, I might add!

If you're wondering who won the ice cream wars, I'll simply point out that 61 years later, Knapp's Dairy Bar is still in the same location and going strong.

This Month in Rochester History

2011-09-01T06:00:00.023-04:00

Fifty years ago this month, Rochester students were heading back to school and some of them were walking into new classrooms. The newly-constructed McGregor Elementary School opened its doors to students who had formerly attended classes in the old Harrison School at the corner of Fourth & Wilcox. The Harrison building, meanwhile, was being remodeled to provide more space for students of the Central Junior High School at that location.

The Rochester Clarion reported that the school district was expecting to enroll approximately 5,100 students for the 1961-62 school year, and increase of about 300 over the previous year. The school district workforce also expanded in 1961, rising to the level of 228 employees - up from 200 the previous year. Fifty years later, RCS enrollment is somewhere near 15,000 and approximately 1,700 people are employed by the district. Back in 1961 RCS had one employee for every 22 students enrolled; today, the ratio is 8.8.

Bygone Business: Rochester Miniature Golf

2011-08-27T06:00:00.011-04:00

It may be difficult to imagine today, but the village of Rochester had its very own 18-hole miniature golf course in 1930. Built at the corner of North Main and Romeo Rd. by partners Clark Price and L.G. Lane, the 100 x 100 ft. course was illuminated by flood lights to facilitate evening play. (Lighting was a common strategy to attract players in the days of the Great Depression when miniature golf courses were all the rage as inexpensive entertainment.) An announcement of the new amusement in the Rochester Clarion reported that the course had been designed to furnish "the most difficult shots possible." The newspaper went on to say:

A rustic fence will be constructed on three sides of the course and the whole enclosure will be made as beautiful as possible. The contractors, Cooper and McClellan, have constructed several of these courses and they report that the golfer will find many difficult shots to improve his practice. The cost of the course is placed at around $1,200.

Perhaps the shots were a little too difficult. The Rochester Miniature Golf Course appears to have faded away rather quickly.

Main Street Stories: James Wilson Smith Block

2011-08-20T06:00:00.070-04:00

Postcard view of the Smith block about 1910

The business block on the southeast corner of University Drive and Main Street, with addresses 436-440 S. Main, was originally known as the James Wilson Smith block when it was built in 1901. At the time, J.W. Smith was the owner of the Hotel St. James on the southwest corner of Fifth (now University) and Main and had a barn on the southeast corner. He took advantage of an economic boom in Rochester at the turn of the twentieth century to build his new business block, and for its design he tapped the Detroit architects Frederick H. Spier and William C. Rohns, who had just drawn the plans for the Detroit Sugar Company factory in Rochester two years before.

The Rochester Era of August 23, 1901, announced the new building this way:

The building occupies the site of the old hotel barn and will be the finest building in Rochester with the possible exception of the Masonic Temple. The building will be completed by the time the snow flies, James S. Stackhouse, the well-known contractor, is the builder and the architects are Spier & Rohns, who designed the sugar mill.

Early tenants in the Smith block were the Edwin A. Hudson grocery, the Korff meat market, and the Idle Hour theatre (before Smith built a new home for it adjoining his hotel). The best known occupant, however, was the Crissman pharmacy, which made its home in the building until 1966. The soda fountain at Crissman's was a popular meeting place and gossip clearinghouse in Rochester for decades.

On May 20, 1992, the northern two-thirds of the building were completely destroyed by a devastating gas explosion that resulted when a construction crew hit an illegal and unknown gas line in the area. The Crissman family, owners of the building, immediately rebuilt the destroyed portion in complete sympathy with the original design, including the ornamental stepped-out brickwork on the west elevation.

As it currently stands, the southern portion of the building (bearing the address 436 S. Main) is the original structure built in 1901; the northern portion (bearing the addresses 438-440 S. Main) is the reconstructed portion built in 1992-93.

At Home in Rochester: The Robert Eldredge Rudd House

2011-08-13T07:00:00.027-04:00

The Tudor revival home at 919 W. University Drive was built in 1929 as the home of Robert Eldredge Rudd and his wife, Grace Lincoln Rudd. R.E. Rudd came to Rochester in 1926 from Richmond, Virginia, where he worked for the Standard Paper Company. In partnership with William O. Stronach, Rudd had the job of re-organizing what had been the old Barnes Brothers Paper Company. The two men modernized and expanded the product line of the paper mill, and were credited with keeping it running and employing Rochester citizens during the Great Depression. The paper mill was the only Rochester industry to maintain steady employment during that era.

Rudd's first wife, the former Grace Lincoln, was a talented soprano who had studied with prominent voice teachers in New York, Chicago and Boston. She was a soloist with Victor Herbert's orchestra and also toured on the Chautauqua circuit.

The Rudds lived in their stately home, which they called "Elmcrest" until 1938, when R.E. Rudd died. The house was sold to William Hoehn, who resided there for a couple of decades; in 1975, owner Melvin Markwardt remodeled the building for office space. It is now the home of Suburban Travel Services and other professional offices.

Bygone Business: Bartholomew's Neighborhood Store

2011-08-06T07:00:00.029-04:00

Clarion photo of Mildred Bartholomew in her store in 1975

If you grew up in the southwestern section of town before 1975, you probably remember buying yourself a cold pop at Bartholomew's store. Mildred S. Bartholomew and her husband, Lucius "Bart" Bartholomew, operated the little grocery and snack shop in a small 14 x 18 room in their home at 710 Renshaw. They started out in 1941 with a partner, George Boyle, but bought out his widow's share of the business after his death. The store was a popular stop for neighborhood kids, who bought cold drinks and penny candy from Mrs. Bartholomew for 34 years. Left to carry on alone after her husband's death in 1948, she made a go of the little grocery until the refrigeration unit in her cold case failed her in 1975, and she decided it was better to close the business and retire than to spend money on repairs. Mrs. Bartholomew died in 1983.

This Month in Rochester History

2011-08-01T06:00:00.019-04:00

Fifty years ago this month, Rochester was welcoming a new merchant to the downtown business district. Jeweler Lee T. Lamereaux announced that he had sold his business at 409 S. Main to Ernest and Violet Heller. Ernest Heller, a native of Vienna and World War II veteran, had operated a jewelry repair business at Selfridge Air Force Base for eleven years, and before that had been a merchant in Croswell.

The physical location of Heller's Jewelry has a long history in Rochester. Before Heller, Lee T. Lamereaux operated the business which he bought from jeweler Pauline Palmer when she retired in the late 1950s. Pauline Palmer was the daughter of longtime Rochester merchant Louis E. Palmer, who built a two-story building to house his jewelry business to Rochester in 1883 and over time, built the entire block of buildings from 409 through 417 S. Main.

Heller's Jewelry opened at 409 S. Main in late August 1961 and is still located there today. Ernest Heller died in 1994 and his wife, Violet passed away in 2000; the business is now operated by their son, George Heller. Happy Birthday, Heller's!

Memory's Eye: East Fourth Street

2011-07-30T06:00:00.026-04:00

Today's Memory's Eye photo is a look at East Fourth Street. Earlier this week, I took this photo of my father standing on the sidewalk in front of the lot where his childhood home once stood - an apartment house at 131 E. Fourth (now a city parking lot). Sixty-three years earlier, my grandmother had taken a photo of Dad and his sister standing in almost the same spot, with the camera looking west up Fourth toward the intersection of Main. The old photo is visible in this mashup as the image on the tablet screen. Notice that the south side of Fourth (left side of the photo) hasn't changed that much - the bank building and Opera House building are visible in both views. The north side of the street, however, looks much different today. The former village hall, visible in the background of the old photo, was demolished in 1962, while the old apartment house at 131 E. Fourth - just out of range of the camera - came down in the 1980s to create more parking space.

Main Street Stories: Opera House Block

2011-07-23T08:36:00.000-04:00

Postcard view of the Opera House block about 1910

There has been a pharmacy operating in the Opera House block on the southeast corner of Main and Fourth streets ever since the building opened its doors in late 1890. John T. Norton was the first drug store proprietor there, and his store was followed by the pharmacies of Zeno Schoolcraft, T. Kenneth Fetters, Richard J. Morley, and Robert A. Lytle.

The man behind the construction of the Opera House block was Charles A. Burr (1857-1934). Burr was one of eight sons of German immigrants Louis and Eliza Gendrick Burr, who came to America in 1850 and soon thereafter settled in Sterling Township in Macomb County. Charles Burr was truly a "man of all trades" and had a varied career that followed several occupational paths. He started out as a school teacher, traveled to California in 1876 to mine gold for three years, then returned to the Utica area to run a hardware business. He brought his hardware business to Rochester in 1882 and also served as the town postmaster for a time. Among the other businesses he engaged in while in Rochester were undertaking, men's clothing, real estate, and fire insurance; he also served as an agent for the local express company.

C.A. Burr's diversified business interests must have served him well. He built the substantial business block at Fourth & Main in 1890, providing retail space on the first floor and an entertainment and public meeting venue, known simply as the Opera House, on the second floor. He also founded the Bank of Rochester along with partner A.F. Newberry, and was financially interested in several other banks in the greater Detroit area.

At the same time that Charles Burr was building his new block, his brother Frank H. Burr, was building a two-store block immediately to the south of the Opera House block. At the close of 1890, the two Burr brothers controlled the first four storefronts south of Fourth on the east side of Main. Ten years later, in 1900, another of their brothers, George Burr, would join them as members of the merchant community in Rochester.

The Opera House block, with its signature Richardsonian arches which were restored by owner Robert A. Lytle in 1986-87, is still one of the most recognizable structures in any image of Main Street. The building was listed on the State Register of Historic Places and received a Michigan Historical Marker in 1991. The Opera House block celebrates its 121st birthday this year.

Bygone Business: Petker's Place

2011-07-16T06:00:00.045-04:00

1975 Clarion ad for Petker's Place

This week's post is a blast from the past for those of you who grew up in the Rochester area in the 1970s and '80s. The Campus Corners shopping plaza on the southeast corner of Walton & Livernois held its grand opening on July 19, 1975, and one of the charter businesses in that shopping center was Petker's Place, a restaurant and bar owned by Steve Petker. A former teacher from Lake Orion who had also operated a restaurant in Florida, Petker debuted his restaurant several months ahead of the Campus Corners grand opening, and wasn't able to sell liquor at the beginning. That was just fine with Steve Petker, however; he wanted his establishment to be thought of as a restaurant that also served liquor rather than a bar that also served food. He wanted it to have a reputation as a family restaurant, and boasted that a family of four could have pizza and soft drinks at Petker's for a total tab of about six bucks.

Petker's location directly across Livernois from Rochester High School made it a natural hang-out for the high school set during my teen years. As I recall, it was the bar of choice for senior class members who were of legal age (eighteen in those days) and looking for a liquid lunch. It was also the favorite after-rehearsal watering hole for a certain church choir that I know of. If you have memories of Petker's and would like to share them, please post a comment.

Bygone Business: Gebert Hardware

2011-07-09T07:00:00.031-04:00

In the days before the big box warehouse stores, downtown Rochester had plenty of hardware merchants to serve the home repair and home improvement needs of the community. One of these was Gebert's Hardware, located at 405 S. Main, in the building now occupied by Molnar Tuxedo. Mr. and Mrs. Walter Gebert opened the hardware business in 1948, but they were already known to area residents as the operators of the former Metz & Buchanan Coal Yard on Diversion Street.

Gebert Hardware closed in the mid-1960s, as did competitor Burr Hardware, a few doors up the block; a devastating fire did in Case's Hardware in 1968. Hardware chains soon took over the territory once owned by these family-operated stores.

The accompanying ad for Gebert Hardware appeared in the 1957 Rochester area telephone book and is provided courtesy of Rod and Susan Wilson.

Main Street Stories: Masonic Block

2011-07-02T07:00:00.055-04:00

Masonic Block as it looked in 1978

The building on the northeast corner of Main and Fourth Streets is known as the Masonic Block, as the second floor of the building housed, in its early years, the rooms of the local Masonic lodge. The block was built in 1899 by the Rochester Building Association on a subscription basis, and the Rochester Savings Bank was one of the early tenants on the ground floor. Edward R. Prall (1857-1913) of Pontiac was selected as the architect for the building, which is designed in the Romanesque Revival style and features rock-faced sandstone trimmed with limestone. Architect Prall was well-known in his day; among the buildings he designed are the Traverse City Opera House (now on the National Register of Historic Places) and some of the State Hospital buildings at Traverse City.

Not long after it was built, an addition was made to the rear of the Masonic block to house George Burr's implement warehouse; this space later became the location of the Rochester Post Office, and was used for that purpose until a new building was erected on the corner of Walnut and Fourth in 1937. Over the years, the Masonic block has housed the Rochester Savings Bank, a Kroger grocery store, Carpenter's Men's Wear, the Lucille Shoppe, the Bright Ideas home furnishings store, and a number of boutique businesses on the first floor. After the Masonic lodge departed the second floor it was used for professional offices (Justice of the Peace Luther Green had his law office there for many years), and the Rochester School of Ballet, among other things.

The Masonic Block was listed on the State Register of Historic Places in 1987 and has a Michigan State Historic Marker on the south wall. The building celebrates its 112th birthday this year.

This Month in Rochester History

2011-07-01T06:00:00.028-04:00

Fifty years ago this month, the Rochester Clarion was telling its readers about the latest exploits of a Rochester resident who was a very familiar face to the community's youth. Lt. Col. Leroy Clark Felton came to Rochester in 1948 to accept a position as industrial arts teacher at Rochester High School. Felton had enlisted in the Army Air Force in 1942 and spent fifteen months in the Pacific theater flying the P-51/F-51 fighter. In 1951, he joined the 403rd Troop Carrier Wing, U.S. Air Force Reserve, at Selfridge Air Force Base, where he served as the unit's Director of Operations, and he later went on to serve as commander of the 911th Military Airlift Group. Mr. Felton retired from the Air Force Reserve at the rank of full colonel in 1979 and relocated from Rochester to Florida, where he died in 2006. In recognition of his long military service, his ashes were inurned at Arlington National Cemetery. If you remember Mr. Felton and would like to read more about him, click here.

Vanished Rochester: Ground Observer Post GN58R

2011-06-25T06:00:00.063-04:00

During the early Cold War era, Rochester was an outpost on the nation's civil defense early warning system. On a hill near St. Andrew's School (now Holy Family Regional School), a small building with windows on all four sides was erected for the use of the community's Ground Observer Corps volunteers. The volunteers worked in pairs around the clock, each team standing a two-hour watch to scan the sky for low-flying enemy aircraft.

The Ground Observer Corps was a U.S. Air Force initiative that began as an experimental program during the Korean War, when it was feared that gaps in American radar defenses might allow low-flying aircraft to invade U.S. air space. After the initial roll-out proved promising, the expanded program, called Operation Skywatch, was promoted nationwide. Eventually, more than 800,000 civilian volunteers stood watches at 16,000 Ground Observer Corps posts strategically located across the country.

In Rochester, the Ground Observer Corps post designated GN58R was built in the summer of 1956. Sarah Van Hoosen Jones and the Chamber of Commerce donated the binoculars for use of the GOC volunteer observers. Nelda Carmichael served as chief observer. The little building had a direct phone line to Selfridge Air Force Base to allow volunteers to report suspicious aircraft directly to military authorities.

Many ordinary Rochester citizens, my father and grandfather among them, stood their post in the tiny shack, watching and waiting to sound the alarm for the Soviet attack that never came. The GOC post in Rochester didn't last long; the entire program was dismantled by the Air Force on January 1, 1959, because advances in technology had allowed the U.S. military to close the gaps in its radar defense system electronically. The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line had been activated in 1957, as had the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). Human "eyes on the sky" were no longer required, and our Ground Observer post passed into the pages of Vanished Rochester.

This image is a Rochester Clarion photo from 1956 and shows Mrs. Bruce Moore (in the doorway) and Mrs. Nelda Carmichael (inside the building).

Bygone Business: Lake Jewelers

2011-06-18T06:00:00.039-04:00

If you grew up in Rochester from the 1950s to the mid-1980s, perhaps you bought a special piece of jewelry from Lake Jewelers, located in the former Barnes building at 309 S. Main Street. Lloyd Lake held his grand opening there in 1953 and staged a diamond and precious gem exhibit to attract customer attention to the new business. A year later, he told the Rochester Clarion that his first year had been very successful and that judging from the positive response, Lake Jewelers was "just the type of store Rochester needed."

Lake's was a fixture at the same location on Main Street for more than three decades; the store closed in the mid-1980s.

This view of the Lake Jewelers storefront at 309 S. Main dates from 1961 and is taken from the collection of Marjorie and the late Walter Dernier.

At Home in Rochester: The Reuben Immick Residence

2011-06-11T06:00:00.045-04:00

Reuben Immick home in 1897 Beautiful Rochester booklet

This Folk Victorian residence on the corner of Third and Oak Streets was built by Reuben Immick as his personal family home in 1890. Immick was born in Lower Mt. Bethel, Pennsylvania in 1852, the son of Aaron and Catherine Immick. Aaron Immick was a carpenter, and Reuben learned the same trade and brought his skill to Rochester, Michigan in 1876. He was one of a number of people to migrate from Northampton County, Pennsylvania to the Rochester area about that time; others from his old home town in Pennsylvania who also settled here were Dr. William Deats, John Ross (also a carpenter), the William Fox family and Francis Stofflet, a schoolteacher at Avon #5.

Reuben Immick married Ida Butz in 1880, and ten years after the couple built this home in the village of Rochester. The house was featured in the 1897 booklet, Beautiful Rochester, which had this to say about Reuben Immick and his new home:

Reuben Immick was born in Lower Mt. Bethel, Pa., in 1852, and came to Rochester in 1876, and for twenty-one years has been one of Rochester's best carpenters. He has built for himself and occupies one of the handsomest residences in town. Has served several terms on the village board and is considered a man of excellent judgment.

Immick's house is still handsome today, and fortunately for us, the delicate spindle decoration on the porches has survived the 121 years since the home's construction and may still be admired by passers-by.

Memory's Eye: Main Street Traffic

2011-06-04T06:00:00.001-04:00

Today's Memory's Eye view shows us that traffic has certainly changed on Main Street over the last century or so. This composition was created by combining a current photo of Main looking northwest between Third and Fourth streets, with the Morse block at the center of the frame, with a circa 1890 photo of the same section of the street.

This Month in Rochester History

2011-06-01T06:00:00.035-04:00

Fifty years ago this month, another school year was coming to an end and Rochester was talking about the impending retirement of school district buildings superintendent Roy H. Schoof. When he was hired in 1931, Roy Schoof was one of a staff of three charged with the maintenance of the main school complex at Fourth & Wilcox streets, plus Woodward Elementary School. He took his duties very seriously and was remembered for the immaculately groomed terraced lawn he cultivated in front of the old Rochester High School. When he retired at the end of the 1960-61 school year after thirty years on the job, he was directing a maintenance staff of twenty-five in a much larger school district than the one he had started with during the Great Depression.

When interviewed on the occasion of his retirement, Mr. Schoof observed that his job had grown and the buildings had changed over the years, but the students were pretty much the same. I wonder what he would think today.

Rochester, Please Remember Memorial Day

2011-05-28T07:00:00.001-04:00

This is a photo of my grandfather taken in 1945 in front of his home at 131 E. Fourth Street in Rochester. As you can tell from his uniform, he was among the ten percent of all residents of Rochester and Avon Township who served in the armed forces during World War II. That wasn't ten percent of the population eligible for military service, folks - that was ten percent of the entire population. One person in ten living in this community went to war during that conflict. If you visit the World War II honor roll on the east lawn of the Rochester Municipal Building, you'll see their names inscribed there.

This Memorial Day, please take time out from whatever else you are doing to reflect on the sacrifices of members of our greater Rochester community throughout all of our nation's conflicts. Tend a grave, take part in the services at Mount Avon Cemetery and Veterans Memorial Pointe, or read the names on the World War II Honor Roll. Some of those names have a gold star next to them.

I recently found a wonderful short video on the meaning of Memorial Day. It was created by a group of students and it offers a great way to pause and reflect upon the importance of the day. If you'd like to view it, click here.

Vanished Rochester: Rochester Paper Mill

2011-05-20T06:00:00.008-04:00

On the banks of the Clinton River, at the southern edge of the emerging village of Rochester, Colonel Stephen Mack built a flouring mill in 1824. The settlement of Rochester was only seven years old at the time. Mack, a native of Connecticut and veteran of the Revolutionary war, had migrated to the territory of Michigan in 1810 and lived in Detroit for a time before leading a group of investors who purchased land to plat the future city of Pontiac. After making his permanent home in Pontiac, he established the aforementioned flouring mill in Rochester.

In 1857, Mack's old mill was converted to paper making, and seven years after that it was purchased by William H. Barnes. Barnes had been born in Connecticut and had worked in paper mills across New England and the mid-Atlantic before coming to Michigan in 1863. With his brothers, Cyrus and Charles, he operated a paper wholesale business in Detroit. In 1864, William H. Barnes moved to Rochester to operate the paper mill on behalf of the Barnes Brothers firm. The Barnes mill was very successful and was an important employer in Rochester for more than a century. The company took a hit in 1875, however, when a local woman named Ann Strong who had a grudge against William Barnes set fire to the mill early on a Sunday morning. The building burned to the ground and Barnes suffered a loss of approximately $32,000. He immediately rebuilt upon the old foundation a mill of brick and slate, and it is this building that is shown in the accompanying photograph.

After the death of William Barnes in 1903, the paper mill operated under several different names and owners. It was for a time known as the Peninsular Paper Company, the Rochester Paper Company, and the James River Company. The paper mill is remembered as the only Rochester industry to operate continuously throughout the years of the Great Depression, offering much-needed jobs for local residents when other factories were shuttered.

In April 2002, the paper company ceased operations, ending a 127-year run of paper making at the site. The property was sold for redevelopment, and in 2005 the old mill was razed; 161 years after Stephen Mack established the first mill at that location, the paper mill passed into the pages of Vanished Rochester.

This postcard view from the collection of the Rochester Hills Public Library shows the paper mill as it looked about 1907.

Bygone Business: L.L. Ball Confectionery

2011-05-14T06:00:00.001-04:00

You've probably got a favorite ice cream store or dessert spot that you enjoy in the Rochester area, but if the magic time machine dropped you into Main Street, Rochester in 1902, where would you go for a sweet treat? One of your options in those days would have been the L.L. Ball confectionery store, located in the - you guessed it - L.L. Ball building. Photographer Lyman L. Ball built a new store at 308 S. Main (the building we know today as Holland's Floral and Gifts) in 1900, with space for his photography studio on the second floor, while the first floor was leased to a bakery. The bakery didn't last long, and Ball needed another business on the street level, so he opened a confectionery store there in 1902. The confectionery store also met a quick demise - despite the claim in this ad that it offered the BEST ice cream soda in the city. Ball sold his building in 1904 to Lafayette Mead for use as a steam laundry.

Pioneer Farmsteads: The John Fairchild Hamlin Residence

2011-05-07T06:00:00.009-04:00

For at least 165 years, the home at 1812 South Rochester Road (west side, just north of Hamlin) has stood on a rise of ground like a sentinel guarding the southerly approach to the town of Rochester. Likely built in the early 1840s by pioneer Avon farmer and contractor John Fairchild Hamlin (1799-1863), the residence was well-appointed for its day, as befitted the home of a man as successful as its owner. J.F. Hamlin was born in 1799 in the state of New York and migrated to Michigan during territorial days. He married Laura Andrus of neighboring Washington Township in 1831 and the couple settled in Avon Township. Hamlin amassed significant real estate holdings; by 1857, he owned more than half of section 22 and part of section 23, totaling 545 acres, as well as lots in the village of Rochester and acreage in other sections. According to his probate file, when John Fairchild Hamlin died in 1863, the land in his estate was valued at more than $30,000.

Part of J.F. Hamlin's fortune came from farming, but some of it came from contracting work for transportation infrastructure in the new state of Michigan. Hamlin was one of the contractors for the section of the Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal running from Utica to Rochester, and after the project was bankrupted, he spent the next decade - along with others - petitioning the state legislature to pay him for his work. Hamlin was also a commissioner of the Rochester and Royal Oak Plank Road Company, chartered by the state of Michigan in 1847.

John's widow, Laura Andrus Hamlin, died in 1883 and ownership of the Hamlin farm, known as Oldhome, passed to John and Laura's daughter, Belle. Belle was married to Marsden C. Burch, who had a long and noteworthy career in law and government service. Burch had begun his law career at the age of 21, as the first clerk and attorney for the newly-minted village of Rochester in 1869; two years later he was appointed probate judge of Osceola County. He also served as a federal district attorney in Grand Rapids before moving on to Washington, D.C. where he joined the Department of Justice. Since the Burches resided for much of their married life in Washington, D.C., they used the old Hamlin homestead as a summer and vacation residence, visiting the Rochester area for a few weeks each year. Judge Burch continued the farm as a going concern by hiring a superintendent to operate it in his absence. In October 1903, the Rochester Era informed its readers about recent activity at the old Hamlin place:

Judge Burch has returned to Washington D.C. and his duties in the department of justice. During the summer the Judge has built over the old Hamlin home, two miles south of Rochester, until it is now one of the finest country residences in Avon township. Always a stately mansion, it has been added to and overhauled until now it is a most desirable home. Robert Featherstone, a good farmer and citizen, occupies the house and works the farm.

In 1916, the Burches sold part of the Hamlin farm holdings for subdivision, but retained the house and other buildings and a generous section of the property for themselves. In announcing the partial sale of the farm, the Era said:

It will be gratifying to the people of this region that Mrs. Burch holds onto the place where she was born [in 1846] and lived until her marriage, and that not one of the buildings is to be parted with, and Oldhome will remain as it is, and has been. It has been known far and wide as the Hamlin Place practically as long as Rochester itself, the mansion and many of the other buildings dating back to the early part of the last century.

A few weeks later, while reporting that some of the outlying farm buildings were being moved from the sold parcels to the property being retained by the Burches, the paper made this comment about their effort:

Their [the Burches'] anxiety to preserve these reminders of the past should be regarded as an example worthy of invitation [one assumes the editor meant to say 'imitation' here] by those who have and can retain the works of their ancestors.

Indeed.

Fortunately for the Hamlin house, it survived when it passed out of Hamlin family ownership in the 1930s. In 1993, the owners of the property were presented with the Earl Borden Award for Historic Preservation for their sympathetic additions to the building which preserved the original house. Today the building houses medical office suites.

This Month in Rochester History

2011-05-01T07:00:00.002-04:00

This month in Rochester history, we mark a musical milestone in the golden anniversary of the Rochester Symphony Orchestra. On May 11, 1961, the Rochester Clarion announced to its readers that the organizational meeting of the new Rochester Civic Orchestra had taken place. The fledgling orchestra, thirty-eight members strong, offered its first public concert at Rochester High School on May 18 of that year, under the baton of Frederic Johnson. An enthusiastic audience of 150 turned out to hear the inaugural program, which featured, among other pieces, Praise Ye the Lord of Hosts by Saint-Saens, the finale from Handel's Water Music and Mozart's German Dance, K.605 no.1.

The orchestra soon changed its name to the Rochester Symphony Orchestra, and quickly grew to be a treasured cultural institution in the community. You may follow the RSO's activities and concert schedule by visiting the orchestra's web page. Happy birthday, RSO!

Learn More About Mail-Order Houses

2011-04-30T06:00:00.001-04:00

Most people have heard of the mail-order kit homes sold by Sears & Roebuck in the early part of the twentieth century. A prospective homeowner could shop for a home design in the Sears catalog and then order the pre-cut building materials and instructions shipped to him at the nearest railroad station. The home kits were designed so that a homeowner and a few family members or friends with basic building skills could assemble the house quickly and easily and save money on construction costs.

Sears houses can be identified in towns across the United States. But did you know that there were other very successful kit home companies, some of them based right here in Michigan? Aladdin Homes in Bay City was another well-known provider of mail-order homes, as was the Togan-Stiles company in Grand Rapids. Togan-Stiles started out marketing kits for garages, outbuildings and summer cottages, then branched out to offer small bungalow homes. The advertisement shown here from the Rochester Era edition of August 6, 1920, tells us that the Rochester Realty Company was an agent for the Togan-Stiles kits homes, so we may have some of these right here in Rochester.

The Rochester Avon Historical Society will offer a program on kit homes at its meeting on Thursday, May 5 at 7:00 p.m. at the Rochester Hills Public Library. Michael W.R. Davis, co-author of the book America's Favorite Homes, will present "Kit Homes in America." The program is free and open to the public, and everyone is welcome.

Memory's Eye: 543 North Main

2011-04-23T06:00:00.004-04:00

Today the Memory's Eye camera points at 543 North Main Street, long the location of the Dillman & Upton lumber yard. The Dillman & Upton company dates to 1910, but even before that the Daniel Kressler lumber and planing mill stood on this site. This location was an ideal spot for a lumber business in the days when the Michigan Central Railroad tracks ran along the northern edge of the property. In 1987, Dillman & Upton relocated to a former industrial property on Woodward Street - where the business is still found today - and the old building on Main Street was razed to make way for new development.

Even though the old Dillman & Upton building has been gone for a quarter of a century now, when I travel past the site my memory's eye still sees this old view. The image shown here is created from a current photo of the site taken a few days ago, and a vintage view of the site taken by my father in the early 1980s.

Bygone Business: Wallace Cleaners

2011-04-16T07:00:00.004-04:00

The building at 621-623 North Main Street was built just before the U.S. entered World War II as the new home of Wallace Cleaners. Proprietor "Skinny" Wallace moved his business into the new structure in August of 1940. Wallace Cleaners was located there for about ten years, and was followed by ArtCraft Cleaners and the Day and Night Laundromat. In the 1970s, Anderson Sewing & Vacuum Service occupied the 623 address, while Lipuma's Coney Island moved into the 621 address.

Currently Lipuma's Coney Island occupies 621 N. Main and the Soy Valley Candle Company occupies 623 N. Main.

This newspaper advertisement boasts a three-piece suit and three ties cleaned for one dollar - such a deal!

Vanished Rochester: Swayze Livery Stable

2011-04-09T06:00:00.007-04:00

For about a century, Rochester had a fine livery stable on West Fifth Street (now University Drive), just west of Main Street. The brick livery barn was built by William Swayze, a New Jersey transplant, most likely around 1872 or 1873, right after the first railroad line came to town. It was situated on the north side of the street, directly behind Swayze's residence, which stood on the northwest corner of Main and Fifth (where the gas station is today), and directly across Fifth Street from the rear of the Lambertson House hotel (later Hotel St. James, and now site of the Bean & Leaf Cafe). The livery stood approximately where the Morton Pharmacy/Rochester Apothecary building is now located.

In 1874, the Rochester Era ran a lengthy description of Swayze's livery business, which said in part:

The building is a fine modern brick structure 32x60 feet on the ground and two stories in height, located on Fifth street near Main. His live stock consists of fourteen horses, always kept up in fine order and ready at any time for the road. His "rolling stock" embraces six top buggies, two open carriages, one double platform spring vehicle, and one stage coach. His "sliding stock" consists of six single cutters, and one double seated cutter. The aggregate amount of capital invested in the concern figures up $10,000, while the business of the house annually runs up to not less than $7,000.

William Swayze died in 1887 and his livery business was continued for a couple of decades by the Hadden family. From the 1940s to the 1960s, the old brick barn was a livery of a different sort, when it served as home of the Carmichael Bus Lines operated by Earl and Nelda Carmichael. (I remember sitting in the drafty - and, as I recall, smelly - old building a time or two in the early 1960s, waiting while my father did some freelance maintenance work on Nelda Carmichael's buses.) After Carmichael Bus Lines departed, the building housed Houghten's Power Center for a time, and it was finally demolished around 1971, not long after the Butts-Swayze house on the corner of University and Main was razed to make room for the gas station.

This photo shows the former Swayze livery and Butts-Swayze residence around 1970, just before both buildings were razed. The camera is looking east-northeast along University Drive toward the intersection of Main. (Photo courtesy of Clarence and Dorene Whitbey)

Memory's Eye: 501 West University

2011-04-02T06:00:00.003-04:00

My father, who attended Rochester High School in the 1950s, tells me that during his school days there was a wooden fence along the Wilcox side of the campus. Dad recalls that students without cars sat on the fence during lunch hour, while students with cars slowly cruised past to impress the "have-nots" with their custom rides.

Today's Memory's Eye post is created from a recent color photo of the Wilcox side of the Rochester Community Schools administration building at 501 W. University (formerly Rochester High School), with a black-and-white 1950s view of the building laid over it. Notice the group of students gathered at the wooden fence.

This Month in Rochester History

2011-04-01T06:00:00.003-04:00

Fifty years ago, in April 1961, citizens of Rochester were approving plans for a second junior high school facility in the Rochester Community School District. Up to that point, the district had been served by a single junior high school located in the main school complex on University Drive, which today houses the district's administration building.

A post-war population explosion in Avon Township (now Rochester Hills) saw hundreds of acres of farmland turned into new subdivisions, bringing new families and many new students to the district. The new junior high school was planned for a site on Old Perch Road, and was originally designed to have 22 classrooms, a gymnasium and a library. The new school was named West Junior High School, presumably because of its geographic location in the western portion of the district, while the old junior high school on University Drive was renamed Central Junior High School.

When West Junior High School opened in the fall of 1962, it was already operating at its 600-student capacity. It has since undergone additions and renovations and is known today as West Middle School; it now serves more than 800 students and is one of four middle schools in the Rochester district.

The accompanying photo of West Middle School was contributed by Alexander, a Remembering Rochester reader. Thank you for sharing!

Subdivision Stories: Oakland View

2011-03-26T06:00:00.003-04:00

The Oakland View subdivision was laid out at the southeast corner of Rochester and Avon Roads in March, 1920. The developer was Detroit's largest bank at the time, the Union Trust Company, represented by vice-president John N. Stalker and secretary Merrill C. Adams. The property had been owned by Mrs. Olive Bromley Fisher Adams and before that was part of the William Fisher farm. The north/south side streets in the subdivision were originally named Wood Avenue (presumably for Walter C. Wood, the civil engineer who laid out the development), Adams Avenue, and Wayne Avenue. The original plat contains a notation that Adams Avenue was changed to Pleasant Street by resolution of the Avon Township Board in 1941, probably to avoid confusion with Adams Road on the west side of the township. The subdivision's east/west street was named Overlook Boulevard, honoring J.J. Snook's Overlook Farm, which was located directly across Rochester Road to the immediate west of the new plat.

None of the street names in the Oakland View subdivision remain today as they were originally platted. In 1950, the Avon Township Board accepted recommendations of the Oakland County Road Commission to change Wood Avenue to Rainier, Pleasant Street (formerly Adams Avenue) to Princeton, Wayne Avenue to Thames, and Overlook Boulevard to Avon Road.

The Oakland View subdivision celebrates its 91st birthday this year.

Memory's Eye: 129 East University

2011-03-19T06:00:00.000-04:00

If you're like me, and you've lived in the community long enough to have observed many changes to the local landscape, there is sometimes a big difference between what your eye sees and what your mind's eye, or memory shows you. As I look around Rochester, I find myself "seeing" things that aren't really there any longer. The image shown here is a digital attempt to show you what I see when I look at the building at 129 East University. I created it from a contemporary photo, snapped yesterday, and a vintage shot taken in the early 1980s. I hope you enjoy this "memory eye" look at Rochester's past.

At Home in Rochester: The Marcus E. Carlton Residence

2011-03-12T06:00:00.007-05:00

The handsome residence at 428 East Street, on the east side near the corner of University, was built in the summer of 1884 for Marcus Eugene Carlton and his wife, the former Lydia E. Shoup. Lydia's parents, Lemuel W. and Laura Shoup, were pioneer settlers of Oakland Township who lived on East Street in Rochester after they retired from farming. Lydia Shoup married M. Eugene Carlton in 1881, and three years later her parents sold a lot on East Street to the young couple so that they could build a home.

In May 1884, the Rochester Era announced that "M.E. Carlton will soon commence the erection of a beautiful Swiss cottage on the lot just north of his father-in-law L.W. Shoup's residence." A few weeks later, the newspaper's readers learned that the house would be a substantial one, designed by a prominent architect who was well-known in Rochester. The Era reported on June 19, 1884:

M.E. Carlton has let the contract for building his residence on North Oliver st., to Arkin & Jones, for $2,000. The design is Swiss cottage, with all the modern attachments, combinations and improvements. According to the plans and specifications, which were executed by John Scott, of Detroit, "Gene" will have, when completed, one of the handsomest and best appointed residences in this section of country.

(In the late decades of the 19th century, East Street was referred to as Oliver Street and is even so labeled on some maps, even though it was named East Street on the original plat of Rochester and is so named today.)

John Scott, architect of the Carlton house, was not only becoming a prominent Detroit architect at the time, he was also the son-in-law of Lysander Woodward of Rochester. John Scott designed a number of buildings of note, some of which are now on the National Register of Historic Places, including the 1902 Wayne County Courthouse, the 1888 Gogebic County Courthouse, and his personal residence on East Ferry Street in Detroit. In Rochester, John Scott was also the architect of the old Congregational parsonage house on Third and Pine.

The Carltons had lived in their beautiful new home on East Street for only a few years when they relocated to Flint and established the M.E. Carlton book and stationery store. The business prospered and was a major office supply outlet in Flint for decades during the first half of the twentieth century.

Today, the John Scott-designed Carlton residence serves as an apartment house. The building celebrates its 127th birthday this spring.

Bygone Business: Nowels Lumber

2011-03-05T07:00:00.005-05:00

Nowels Lumber Yard was located at 412 Water Street, just south of the Rochester Elevator. Owner and operator Russell W. Nowels first came to Rochester in 1920, just after he had been released from the army at the end of World War I. He was an investor with a group of business men who were operating several lumber yards, and the investor group hired Nowels to manage their Rochester yard. He was successful in building up the business and was able to buy it in 1932, when he changed the name to Nowels Lumber & Coal. The Nowels family business grew and eventually included three lumber yards in the area.

Russ Nowels told a Clarion interviewer in the mid-1950s that the Federal Housing Act of 1936 had transformed his industry by popularizing the "do-it-yourself" movement among homeowners. Nowels tried to stay out front of this development with a training program that equipped his employees to instruct homeowners in selection and use of building materials and tools, and he credited this program with the success of his lumber business in the post-WWII era.

The Nowels lumber yard closed in October 1966, and Houghton Power Center took over the building at 412 Water St. Russell W. Nowels died in 1976.

This Month in Rochester History

2011-03-01T07:00:00.001-05:00

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Rochester's B.P.O.E. Lodge No. 2225, popularly known as the Rochester Elks. A group of interested men gathered at Knapp's Restaurant on Main Street in late February of 1961 to discuss the formation of a Rochester lodge, and at the end of March, they were granted a charter.

The Elks met for a time in the old Congregational church building at the corner of Third and Walnut, which had just been vacated when the congregation moved to its new, larger campus on North Pine. Eventually, the lodge was able to build its own club building on East University, on land that had been reclaimed from the old Chapman Pond lake bed. That building was torn down to make way for the development of the Sunrise Senior Living facility, and the Elks moved to the corner of North Main and Lysander, to the building that had once been Davey's Market.

Happy Birthday, Rochester Elks!

Ora Foster's Fifteen Minutes

2011-02-26T07:00:00.003-05:00

Once upon a time, there was a young man from the Rochester-Pontiac area named Ora Archie Foster. When he was 21 years old, he left his work as a welder and enlisted in the U.S. Army just a couple of weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Ora advanced quickly from private to corporal, and was sent to England, where he would serve as a member of the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

On a September day in 1942, Ora Foster found himself traveling on foot through the countryside in Gloucestershire, England, when he decided to hitch a ride from a passing automobile. Apparently he did not consider, as any of us would today, that such an act might get him into considerable trouble or danger. Instead, he accepted a ride from two pleasant ladies in a large automobile and spent about forty-five minutes in their company, entertaining them with a constant stream of chatter, and commenting about his host country that "there's no place like home, but this is a nice place for a vacation." When he reached the end of his journey and thanked his hostess for the ride, she said to him,"You don't know who I am, do you?"

Cpl. Foster recalled that he could have been "knocked over with a feather" when his traveling companion identified herself as the Queen Mother, Mary, widow of the late King George V and mother of the reigning monarch, King George VI. Ora Foster's story made international news a few days later. His encounter was reported in the New York Times under the headline "The Private and the Queen," and he rated a mention in the "People" column of Time Magazine in the September 14, 1942 issue (click here to read it).

The New York Times account claimed that Foster was from Rochester, Michigan, but other accounts identified his home as Pontiac. I don't know which is accurate, but Ora Foster lived in Lake Orion after the war and was employed by Fisher Body for 30 years. He died in 1998 and is buried in Ottawa Park Cemetery in Waterford Township. His obituary mentioned his military service in World War II but omits any mention of his friendly chat with the Queen Mother.

Subdivision Stories: North Hill Gardens

2011-02-19T06:00:00.003-05:00

Lying east of Rochester Road and south of Tienken, the North Hill Gardens subdivision was opened in 1941 in part to answer the community's desperate need for additional housing for defense workers. During the summer of 1941, National Twist Drill & Tool Company was expanding its factory on the northeast corner of Tienken & Rochester in order to take on more defense contracts to fill the nation's Lend-Lease orders. McAleer Manufacturing had just moved to Rochester from Detroit in June of 1941, and was readying its factory at Fourth and Water to fill military requisitions for polishes and abrasives. Both companies were hiring more workers, and the Rochester area didn't have enough housing to accommodate their needs.

Three Rochester businessmen joined in partnership to develop the North Hill Gardens subdivision and provide affordable housing for factory workers. They were Ford dealer Larry Jerome, clothier Roy J. McCornac, and lumber dealer Russell Nowels. When the opening of the subdivision was announced in October 1941, the Rochester Clarion made these remarks, which give us a clue to the reason for subdivision's name:

The choice of this site on Tienken road southeast of the new National Twist Drill and Tool Co. plant is especially fortunate. It offers all the conveniences of the village with the low cost of land and beauty of country life. The gracious plots of ground in North Hills subdivision make it possible to have large gardens. Families should have an abundance of fresh vegetables - making it healthful and an economical place to live.

The story went on to comment about the affordability of the housing:

The lots will sell for from $235 to $495. Houses will be built as quickly as needed, the interior roughed in to be finished by the owner.

The street running through North Hill Gardens was named Orchard - a fitting label since the property in the area was an orchard, but the Township of Avon renamed it Red Oak in August 1950, when dozens of street names were changed at the recommendation of the county road commission.

William Clark Chapman

2011-02-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

Most of us who live in Rochester admire the stately Chapman House as we travel down Walnut Street, and the Chapman name is visible elsewhere in our community - in the names of subdivisions, the name of a former lake, and even in the name of a recently-opened restaurant. So who was William C. Chapman, whose home still stands at 311 Walnut?

William Clark Chapman was born in Proctorsville, Vermont on March 1, 1866. He was the third of four children and the youngest son of Clark Howard Chapman and Ellen M. Sherwin. William Chapman's father was a prominent man in Windsor County, Vermont; he was an attorney, delegate to a state constitutional convention, and Register of the Probate Court. The family variously lived in Ludlow, Cavendish, and Proctorsville, Vermont, all neighboring towns within Windsor County, until 1882, when Clark H. Chapman decided to move his family to Detroit.

Young William was sixteen years old when his family came to Michigan. His older brother and only living sibling, Charles Sherwin Chapman, was eighteen. William attended a business college and then took a position as bookkeeper for Detroit lumber and real estate magnate William C. Yawkey. He also spent three years learning the lumber business in Wisconsin before returning to Detroit. In 1891, Yawkey and William's brother, Charles S. Chapman, organized the Western Knitting Mills in Detroit and brought William on board as secretary-treasurer of the company. WKM moved to Rochester in 1896, building a state-of-the-art factory on Water Street at the foot of Fourth, and establishing itself as the community's primary employer for a generation. Both Charles and William Chapman built impressive homes in the village of Rochester.

Chapman married Ada Josephine Barney in his old home of Ludlow, Vermont in 1890, and the couple had one son, Carroll Barney Chapman. Though William and Ada Chapman made their home in Rochester for almost all of their married life together, they remained in close touch with their family and friends in Vermont and made frequent visits to their childhood home.

Charles Chapman died in 1912, but William continued with Western Knitting Mills until the company closed about 1927. He also owned and developed many parcels of real estate in Rochester, and was involved in a variety of community organizations. When William Clark Chapman died, at the age of 80, on May 20, 1946, his remains were sent back to Ludlow, Vermont for burial with other members of the Chapman and Barney families.

This portrait of William Clark Chapman is from the collection of Rod and Susan Wilson.

What Do They Have in Common - Answers

2011-02-09T06:00:00.002-05:00

Here are the answers to the "What Do They Have in Common?" quiz:

1. Keith Crissman, Larry Jerome, Dick Davis? - automobile dealers
2. Hale's, Stapp's, Zimmerman's, Burr's? - shoe stores
3. Deaton's, Byers', Potere's? - gas stations
4. Milton Weaver, Maurice Watson, Nina Martin? - real estate offices
5. Alward, Johnson, Plassey, Young? - groceries
6. Oberg's, Avon Theater, National Bank of Rochester, Varsity Shoppe? - all were located, at various times, at 435 S. Main
7. Lucille's, Carpenter's, Buzzell's? - clothing stores
8. Brooks, Reading, Terry? - dentists

What Do They Have in Common?

2011-02-05T06:00:00.002-05:00

Here's another little quiz for those of you who remember Rochester of the 1950s and 1960s. For each numbered item, decide what all the named elements have in common with one another. Answers will be posted here on Wednesday, February 9.

What do these have in common?

1. Keith Crissman, Larry Jerome, Dick Davis?
2. Hale's, Stapp's, Zimmerman's, Burr's?
3. Deaton's, Byers', Potere's?
4. Milton Weaver, Maurice Watson, Nina Martin?
5. Alward, Johnson, Plassey, Young?
6. Oberg's, Avon Theater, National Bank of Rochester, Varsity Shoppe?
7. Lucille's, Carpenter's, Buzzell's?
8. Brooks, Reading, Terry?

This Month in Rochester History

2011-02-01T06:00:00.001-05:00

Fifty years ago this month, in February of 1961, Rochester residents were saying goodbye to a familiar business on Main Street. Verne Sutton, who had operated Sutton's Market on the southwest corner of Third and Main (where Mind, Body & Spirits is today), announced his retirement in the February 23, 1961 edition of the Rochester Clarion.

Sutton told the Clarion that some of his original customers who had started out with him when he opened the market in 1934 were still with him after 27 years, and he would miss them. The day of the small grocery store was fading fast, however, as more chain supermarkets came on the scene, and Sutton's was one of the last to leave the downtown business district. Verne Sutton sold the building and liquidated his grocery inventory, and soon after a gift shop called The Dants opened in the former Sutton's location.

This view of Sutton's Market is from the collection of Marjorie and the late Walter Dernier.

Main Street Stories: DeBaene Building

2011-01-29T08:34:00.006-05:00

The building at 419-423 S. Main Street was completed in late 1926 by local businessman Camille J. DeBaene on a lot that for half a century before had been the location of the offices of Doctors Jesse and Jerry Wilson. A native of Belgium who came to the U.S. with his family as a child, DeBaene settled in Rochester after his marriage in 1905. In 1926, the Clarion announced that a new, one story stone and brick building was going up on the Wilson site and would house the A&P grocery store when complete. The DeBaene building was part of a mini building boom on Main Street that was sparked in anticipation of the construction of the South Hill bridge, scheduled for the summer of 1927.

Over the years, the DeBaene building has house two or three businesses at a time in its three sections. Among the tenants have been the A&P, DeBaene Lunch Room, DeBaene Tax Service, The Thimble Shop, Martin's Men's Wear, Cap' Tele-Tec TV Service, Avon Printing, Avon Recreation, Shepard's Bar, Birmingham Camera, Boulevard Bridal, and most recently, Mr. B's Food and Spirits, and the Spy Shop.

The DeBaene building celebrates its 85th birthday in 2011.

This 1940s postcard view of the DeBaene building is from the collection of Rod and Susan Wilson.

Subdivision Stories: Woodward Heights

2011-01-22T06:00:00.003-05:00

There are several places in Rochester named in honor of pioneer farmer and businessman Lysander Woodward, and one of them is the Woodward Heights subdivision located west of North Main Street between Woodward Street and the northern city limits. The property on which the subdivision was laid out was formerly part of the farm of Lysander Woodward, which totaled nearly 400 acres and included land on both sides of Main Street.

In 1920, Woodward's daughter, Emma, and her husband, noted Detroit architect John Scott, sold a part of the Woodward estate to the Rochester Development Company. Local business leaders William Clark Chapman and Milton H. Haselswerdt were the officers of the development company, and William J. Fisher, a partner in the Fisher Brothers architecture and engineering firm of Pontiac, was the surveyor who laid out the streets.

One of the street names shown on this plat of the Woodward Heights subdivision has changed; Sugar Avenue, so named for the Detroit Sugar Company factory built upon in 1899, was renamed Woodward Street by the village council in 1927. Also notable among the subdivision's street names is Scott Street (highlighted in red on the plat), a very short street - now an alley, really - between Glendale and Ferndale, presumably named for proprietors John and Emma Woodward Scott.

When the lots in Woodward Heights were offered for sale, lot #1 was purchased by Rochester businessman A.R. Dillman, and lot #2 was purchased by Milton H. Haselswerdt. The fine homes these two men built upon those lots still stand today along North Main.

The Woodward Heights subdivision celebrates its 91st birthday this summer.

At Home in Rochester: The George Flumerfelt Residence

2011-01-15T06:00:00.014-05:00

The home on the southwest corner of Walnut and Fourth streets was built in the summer of 1895 by George M. Flumerfelt (sometimes also spelled Flummerfelt). Flumerfelt was born in Oakland Township in 1838, one of nine children of pioneer Oakland farmers William and Esther Flumerfelt. After seeking his fortune in an extensive tour of the western United States as a youth, George Flumerfelt returned to the Rochester area where he farmed a large tract of land. He also invested in the local banks, and served as officer and director of several local businesses. He was also active politically and served as village clerk, village councilman, and member of the school board.
Flumerfelt's first wife, the former Rebecca Cummins, died in 1890 and two years later he married Clara E. Crissman. The couple built their new home in Rochester at 339 Walnut Street, on the corner opposite Fourth Street from the Baptist church. The Rochester Era of May 24, 1895 reprinted this announcement from the Pontiac Gazette:

Fisher Bros. have completed plans and specifications for a very fine modern frame house for G.M. Flummerfelt, of Rochester. The structure will be 56x40 feet, two stories and an attic, with octagon corner tower.
The basement will be divided into furnace and coal rooms, vegetable cellar, etc., with cement floors, with outside and inside entrances.
The ground floor will have a parlor, hall, sitting, bed and bath rooms, kitchen and summer kitchen, pantry, dumb waiter, etc. The hall and front stair case will be of panel work; the sitting room with have mantel, grate and tiled hearth, and the whole first floor is to be finished in oak; and the dining room floor to be of inlaid beech and oak. A colonial porch will extend across two sides, divided by a corner tower.
The second floor is to be divided into four chambers and store room, with closets throughout, all to be finished in Georgia pine, and have balconies over porches. Attic unfinished.
The roof will be hipped, with gables and dormers and of slate and with galvanized iron crestings and finials. All windows to be of double thick American glass and doors of double polished plate and art glass.
This will be the finest residence in the village, and reflect credit upon Mr. Flummerfelt, as well as its young designers.

The Fisher Brothers, Charles and William, had just launched their architecture and engineering firm in Pontiac in 1895. The company went on to great success and designed many buildings that were prominent in Pontiac in their day. They also designed the granite fountain donated to the village of Rochester by Samuel Harris in 1917.

George Flumerfelt died in 1917, and in 1929 his residence became the location of the Alanson C. Hobart Funeral Home. After William R. Potere bought out Hobart in 1950, he made several additions to the house to accommodate the needs of his growing funeral and ambulance business, but the features of the original house are still clearly visible today. John and Mary Modetz purchased the funeral home from Potere in 1986 and continue to operate it in the former George Flumerfelt residence.

The George M. Flumerfelt residence will celebrate its 116th birthday in 2011.

Vanished Rochester: Old St. Andrew

2011-01-08T07:00:00.004-05:00

St. Andrew Roman Catholic Church is one of Rochester's largest congregations today, and has most certainly not "vanished," but the building that served as its home for nearly half a century has, indeed, disappeared from Rochester's landscape.
The congregation had celebrated its first mass in Rochester in 1912, and two years later purchased a lot on the southwest corner of Walnut and Third streets. In 1923-24, construction of a new church facility was begun with the excavation of the basement. The congregation used the enclosed basement for several years and completed the construction of the church building on a pay-as-you-go basis over the next several years.
As Rochester experienced robust population growth in the post-World War II era, so did the St. Andrew congregation, and the church on Walnut Street became increasingly inadequate for its needs. A new site in the northeast corner of town was purchased and the parish began using its new facility there in 1969, placing the Walnut Street property on the market.
The old church was first optioned by a developer who envisioned placing boutique businesses in the building, but those plans fell through and the City of Rochester purchased the site with the intention of adding much-needed parking spots for the downtown business district. The planned demolition of old St. Andrew sparked a major public outcry, and an effort to stop it was led by a local architect. More than 500 petition signatures were gathered during a two-day demonstration on Main Street, complete with a parade and band music, and letters of support were gathered from local industrial leaders. The Oakland County Pioneer and Historical Society weighed in as well, calling the impending destruction of old St. Andrew an "irreparable loss." On the other side of the argument, city council members were firmly convinced that their duty lay in solving downtown's critical parking shortage, and after some last-minute legal wrangling, gave the order for the bulldozers to roll. On July 24, 1972, old St. Andrew passed into the pages of vanished Rochester.

This Month in Rochester History

2011-01-01T07:00:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year to everyone and welcome to the third year of Remembering Rochester!

This year, I've decided to make a small change in my "This Month in Rochester History" posts. On the first day of each month in 2011, I'll look back fifty years in Rochester's history to find out what was making big news in town during the corresponding month in 1961. Those readers who were in town at that time are encouraged to post comments with their own memories of these events.

So, here we go - in January 1961, this is the Rochester Clarion story that caught my eye:

New Group Offers Help to Library
A group of volunteers moved this week to ease the strain on facilities of the Avon Township Public Library.
The newly-formed "Friends of the Library" will hold its first general meeting at 8 p.m. Friday in the library, 210 W. University Drive.
Persons attending the meeting will be able to become charter members of the group.

Today, this half-century-old organization is known as the Friends of the Rochester Hills Public Library, and it continues to support the library's programs and services with grants made possible through fund-raising efforts such as used book sales and the Friends' Library Store.

Happy 50th birthday, Friends of RHPL!

Rochester Elevator Listed on National Register of Historic Places

2010-12-24T07:00:00.001-05:00

The Griggs Brothers/Rochester Elevator Company Grain Elevator, located at the corner of Water St. and East University Drive in Rochester, has just been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Brothers Charles K. and Albert G. Griggs built the elevator in 1880 on what was then the Detroit & Bay City Railroad line. At the time, the opening of the elevator was important news for the Rochester area, because it connected local farmers with state and national grain and produce markets and saved them from having to haul their crops to Detroit to sell them. The elevator was a center of commerce for Rochester and contributed to the economic success of the farmers in the surrounding townships.

Charles K. Griggs operated the elevator for about 20 years, then sold it to a business partner, E.S. Letts. In 1909, the building was enlarged at both ends to form the structure that we know today, and the name was changed to the Rochester Elevator Company. The business passed through several other owners before the Smith family took over more than half a century ago. Although it no longer ships grain to market, the Rochester Elevator is the oldest continuously operating business within the city limits of Rochester, and has been housed in the same structure for 130 years. Earlier this year, the Rochester Avon Historical Society nominated the Rochester Elevator for the National Register of Historic Places, and that designation has just been awarded by the Office of the Keeper of the National Register at the National Park Service. Congratulations, Rochester Elevator, on a well-deserved honor!

At Home in Rochester: The Lloyd G. Satterlee Residence

2010-12-18T07:00:00.003-05:00

The cement block home on the southwest corner of North Main and Griggs streets was built by Lloyd Garrison Satterlee, an inventor and entrepreneur, in 1905. Satterlee had invented a process for manufacturing cement roofing tiles and designed the house to showcase his product. He began construction in the fall of 1905, and in the spring of 1906, the Rochester Era reported on his progress:

L.G. Satterlee is busy finishing his house in the Albertson addition, the cement walls of which were up last fall. He proposes a roof of cement shingles of his own patent and manufacture -- both house and barn -- which will furnish a practical test of their utility in all respects. The residence is a model of convenience and is to be finished in the best possible manner.

The house must have attracted positive attention, because Satterlee and other local investors including E.S. Letts, William C. Chapman and George A. Hammond formed the Twentieth Century Cement Tile Roofing Company in Rochester in 1907 to manufacture and sell Satterlee's invention. The company lasted but a few years, and Satterlee moved on from Rochester, eventually settling in Santa Cruz, California.

Eventually, houses on North Main Street transitioned from residential to business use, and the Satterlee residence became the home of Norman Hastings' Culligan Soft Water Service. Today, it is occupied by law offices.

The L.G. Satterlee house is 105 years old this year.
The accompanying photograph shows the Satterlee residence as it looked in 1907.

Subdivision Stories: Elmdale

2010-12-11T06:00:00.003-05:00

The Elmdale subdivision at the southwest corner of Crooks & Auburn roads was platted in June 1925 on part of the farm lands of Harry J. and Kate L. Davis Serrell. The Serrells were dairy farmers, and owned a large tract of land in sections 32 and 33 of the Township of Avon, lying immediately south of Auburn Road.

When they platted their subdivision, Harry and Kate Serrell named the streets lying within it for their three children: Grant J. Serrell (1897-1956), Donald J. Serrell (1900-1981) and Alice D. Serrell (1906-1997). Grant St. still exists within the subdivision today, but in 1950 the Township of Avon renamed a number of streets at the suggestion of the county road commission. At that time, Alice St. was renamed Alsdorf, and Donald St. was renamed Donley.

The Elmdale subdivision is 85 years old this year.

Historical Society Offers Rochester-Themed Holiday Gift Ideas

2010-12-04T06:00:00.006-05:00

If you are looking for Rochester-themed gifts for a family member or friend who appreciates Rochester history, the Rochester Avon Historical Society has a variety of items for sale that will fit the bill. The popular Cat's Meow series of wooden building figures has two new entries this year that have arrived just in time for holiday shopping. They are the Hotel St. James, which stood on the southwest corner of Main and University Drive from 1847 to 1962, and the Lysander Woodward house, which stands on North Main at the city limits. Previous issues in the series include popular buildings such as Knapp's Dairy Bar, the D&C, the Home Bakery, and the Rochester Elevator, to name a few.

Also available from RAHS are its publications, including Home Town Rochester, a hardcover, illustrated history of Rochester and Rochester Hills published in 2008, a softcover photo history published in 2000 entitled Rochester: Preserving History - A Pictorial Journey, and several other items.

The Rochester Avon Historical Society is a private, nonprofit organization that operates strictly upon its own membership dues and fund raising efforts, and its mission is to help to preserve what is worthy of our history for future generations, and to educate the community about its heritage. When you purchase merchandise from RAHS, your money is going to help fund activities such as the restoration of the Beerbohm mural, placing of markers and historic designations on eligible properties, the publication of books and pamphlets about our community's history, and a wide variety of public programs offered throughout the year.

If you are in the Rochester area, you will find selected RAHS merchandise for sale at Lytle Pharmacy, the gift shop of the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm, and Holland's Floral and Gifts. During the weekend of December 3-5, items may be purchased at the RAHS booth at the Kris Kringle Market on Fourth Street in downtown Rochester. If you are not in the Rochester area, you may purchase items by mail-order by using the order form on the RAHS web site.

Happy holidays, and I hope to see you at the Kris Kringle Market!

This Month in Rochester History

2010-12-01T06:00:00.005-05:00

Anyone who regularly travels on M-59 has doubtless enjoyed the recent completion of the road widening through Rochester Hills which has had the highway under construction for the past year and a half. It's an appropriate time to look back thirty-eight years to December 1, 1972, when the public dedication and ribbon cutting ceremonies took place for the original M-59 expressway between Pontiac and Utica.

On the drawing boards since the early 1960s, the road construction got underway in May 1971 and was completed at a cost of $9 million (not including the property purchases for right-of-way). In contrast, the recent widening project begun last summer to add a third lane between Crooks and Ryan cost $50 million.

At the same time that the Utica to Pontiac expressway was under construction, Macomb County officials were planning to extend it eastward all the way to I-94. At that time, Hall Road still ran through mostly undeveloped property, and the route was feasible. However, the plan never moved forward and retail and housing development along Hall Road ruled out the project after a few years.

This photo, taken by Macomb Daily photographer Robert Sassanella, shows local officials huddling against the December cold for the 1972 ribbon cutting ceremony. Shown from left are: Ron Poli, Kirby Holmes, Gail McCauley, George Nickson, Carol Harris, Thomas Guastello and Donald Bemis. (Photo used with permission from the Macomb Daily).

Bygone Business: Bill's Barn

2010-11-27T13:26:00.002-05:00

Sixty-four years ago, the newspapers carried the announcement of the grand opening of a new entertainment venue in the Rochester area, and the place was known as "Bill's Barn." Strictly speaking, Bill's Barn is in Shelby Township, since it is located on the east side of Dequindre Road, just north of Auburn, but I'm including its story in this blog because it is right across the township line and was frequently by many Rochester people in its heyday.

The proprietor and manager of Bill's Barn was William Schroeder, who opened the dance hall on July 26, 1946, with Rochester's own Hollis Hinkel and his orchestra providing the music. The inaugural dance was a benefit for the Brooklands Fire Association, and regular public dances began the following night. The hall became a popular spot for square dance enthusiasts and teens following contemporary dance as well.

One year after the grand opening, the Brooklands Exchange Club announced that it would sponsor a youth center at Bill's Barn, serving teens from Shelby and Avon Townships, and the building became a focal point of teen social events throughout the following decade.

By the time I was a teen, Bill's Barn had been converted to its current use, the home of the local Disabled American Veterans chapter and the location of a weekly flea market. I imagine that there are plenty of "Bill's Barn" stories out there from its dance hall days - how about it, readers?

At Home in Rochester: The Burton McCafferty Residence

2010-11-20T08:44:00.003-05:00

Not long after the interurban line came to Rochester at the turn of the twentieth century, so did a Macomb County man named Burton "Bert" McCafferty. McCafferty had been born nearby in Bruce Township in 1867, and was in business in Marine City before he relocated to Rochester to operate a saloon and cigar stand on Main Street.

Business must have been good, because in the summer of 1906, the Pontiac Press Gazette reported that Bert McCafferty was building a new house in Rochester. On October 23, 1906, the Press Gazette said, "Bert McCafferty and family are moving into their fine new residence on West Fourth Street." Although it was not mentioned in the newspaper account, local tradition says that like the C.G. Griffey house, the McCafferty house is one of several buildings in the area constructed with brick reclaimed from the demolition of the Detroit Sugar Company mill, which happened during 1906.

The McCafferty family stayed only a few years in their new house on West Fourth. By 1920, Bert McCafferty had moved his business interests to Wayne County. The Dobat family lived in the house after the McCaffertys, and by 1930, it was the residence of local businessman and owner of the Rochester Elevator, Lewis Cass Crissman.

Today, the McCafferty house is a beautifully restored private residence, and it celebrates its 104th birthday this year.

This photo, from a 1907 publication promoting Rochester, shows the McCafferty residence as it looked just after it was built.

Vanished Rochester: Danish Old People's Home

2010-11-13T13:08:00.003-05:00

The stately old home that stood atop the bluff at the corner of Walton and Brewster roads was known as the Danish Old People's Home from 1949 to 1973. The property on which the house stood was owned for the last half of the 19th century by Oliver Hazard Perry Griggs and his wife Lovina Kelly Griggs, who migrated to Avon Township from Wyoming County, New York in 1865. Griggs farmed the land and reared his children there, but moved to the village of Rochester in his later years. The farm then passed into the hands of his son, Charles K. Griggs, owner and operator of the Rochester Elevator. C.K. Griggs continued to operate the farm but did not reside there - he had a handsome home in the village of Rochester as well.

In January 1915, C.K. Griggs sold the farm at Walton and Brewster, consisting at that time of 210 acres, to Pontiac farmer Arthur M. Butler for the sum of $21,000. Butler lived on the farm until the death of his wife, then sold it in October 1939 to Herbert M. Bray, an executive with the Ajax Steel & Forge Company of Detroit. Herbert Bray died in 1945 and in May 1948, his widow, Violet, sold the estate which the Brays had called "Diane Acres" to the Detroit Lodge of the Danish Brotherhood in America for use as a retirement home for Danish Americans. Extensive additions and renovations were planned to the house to make it suitable for its new purpose.

In February 1949 the Danish Brotherhood celebrated the dedication of the Danish Old People's Home in Avon Township. In 1962, a memorial garden and fountain were added to the property in honor of all Danish immigrants to America who had located in the Detroit area. The fountain was the work of renowned sculptor Marshall Fredericks, featured a bronze swan in flight, and was entitled "Nordic Swan and Ugly Duckling." Count Knuth-Winterfeldt, at the time the Royal Danish Ambassador to the United States, visited the Danish Old People's Home to formally dedicate the garden and fountain.

In early 1973, the Danish Brotherhood announced the closing of the Danish Old People's Home because the society did not have the funds to complete an expensive array of necessary repairs and upgrades to the property. The 20 residents at the home were moved to other facilities and the home closed on April 30 of that year. Soon thereafter, Lutheran Social Services of Michigan began plans for a modern senior living community at the location, and the old house was razed when construction of the new facility began.

Danish Village was opened to residents in 1980. The memorial garden and fountain with the Marshall Fredericks sculpture were retained and are still a prominent feature of the property today.

This postcard view of the Danish Old People's Home is from the collection of Rod and Susan Wilson.

Subdivision Stories: Spring Hill

2010-11-06T07:00:00.009-04:00

The Spring Hill subdivisions near the southeast corner of Walton and Adams roads stand on land that was owned by the Ross family for most of the nineteenth century. The property was originally purchased from the federal government in 1825 by Needham Hemingway, a settler who came to Oakland County from Monroe County, New York and built a grist mill in Oakland Township around which the settlement of Goodison would eventually form. By 1857, John Ross, a local builder who had migrated to Michigan from Northampton County, Pennsylvania, owned the land. It later passed to John Ross's sons, George S. Ross and David H. Ross.

We have some information about the inhabitants of the area before Needham Hemingway bought the land, however. This item published in the Rochester Era on November 3, 1899, tells us:

D.H. Ross of Southwest Avon brought to The Era office last Friday a rare collection of Indian arrowheads which he picked up on his farm. In early days an Indian trail ran through the farm and the redmen were in the habit of camping near by on Renshaw's lake [the lake referred to here was on the Jacob Miller farm just to the south of the Ross property and is also known as Miller's Lake on most maps]. Mr. Ross says that he has gathered more than a bushel of arrowheads and other Indian relics, but had given the most of them away. The arrowheads are made of a flinty stone, which looks very much like that which abounds in the Lake Superior region.

The Ross land was eventually purchased by Pontiac real estate investor Edward M. Stout, and in the spring of 1955, his widow, Grace, platted the first Spring Hill subdivision on it. Subsequent Spring Hill subdivisions were platted later in 1955, in 1957 and 1959, and were developed by the Howard T. Keating real estate firm, which offered new houses in the $25-30,000 range. Today there are 323 lots in the combined Spring Hill subdivisions. The original Spring Hill subdivision celebrates its 55th birthday in 2010.

This Month in Rochester History

2010-11-01T07:00:00.006-04:00

One hundred and twenty years ago this month, Rochester residents were invited to the grand opening of a brand new entertainment venue - the Rochester Opera House. Located on the second floor of Charles A. Burr's new building on the southeast corner of Fourth and Main streets, the Opera House became the "in" location for all sorts of public gatherings. At the time, Rochester did not yet have a movie theater, and the school building had no auditorium. The churches were large enough to seat an audience for certain kinds of events, but they weren't exactly appropriate venues for boxing matches, minstrel shows, vaudeville acts, and the like. With the opening of the Opera House, Rochester had an opportunity to house traveling acts of all kinds.

The Opera House held its grand opening on Friday, November 7, 1890. The event was a dinner at the Sidney House (later Detroit Hotel) at Third & Main, followed by a dance in the Opera House featuring music by Finney's Orchestra from Detroit. (At the time, Finney's Orchestra, led by violinist Theodore Finney, was considered to be one of the premiere society musical ensembles in the area, and later went on to make quite a name for itself when ragtime became popular.)

Over the years, the Rochester Opera House played host to a wide variety of events, including amateur and touring theatricals, boxing matches, concerts, dances, lectures, civic meetings and high school commencement ceremonies, but I have never seen an advertisement for an actual opera at that location.

In 1909, hotel operator James W. Smith began offering motion picture exhibitions in one of his buildings, and in 1914, the Idle Hour Theater opened to the public. The new high school building added a state-of-the-art auditorium a few years after that, and these new venues dwarfed the capacity of the Opera House, causing it to gradually fall out of favor as a gathering place by the early 1920s.

The newspaper ad shown here promoted a 1914 event at the Rochester Opera House. A couple of the contestants in these matches were local men. Do you recognize any names?

Bygone Business: Michigan Motor Car Manufacturing

2010-10-27T07:00:00.000-04:00

On February 25, 1910, the citizens of Rochester saw this large advertisement in the Rochester Era, informing them that their little village would soon join the ranks of Detroit and Pontiac as home to an automobile factory. The Michigan Motor Car Manufacturing Company, with offices in Detroit, announced that it would establish a factory here and build its 6-cylinder roadster, dubbed the "Michigan Six," in Rochester. The ad described the Michigan Six this way:

The Michigan Six is a light, smooth running car, six cylinders ("continuous power"), powerful, long wheel base, 123 inches; large wheels, tires 10x4 inches front and rear; multiple disc clutch, selective transmission running in oil; three point suspension of unit power plant; magneto; advanced system of carbaretion [sic], exclusive. For material and workmanship it is the best.

Residents of Rochester, according to the ad, would be given the agent's discount when purchasing a "built in Rochester" Michigan Six.
There was just one little problem. According to the Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1805-1942 (Krause Publications, 1996), this is what happened:

[the company] showed its first car at the Detroit Automobile Show in January 1910. It was a 30 hp six-cylinder roadster on a 123-inch wheelbase, with a $1,550 price tag. In February the company announced that it would relocate in a new factory in Rochester -- the former Ayres gasoline engine works -- and production for 1910 would be 500 cars. All this was window dressing. In March Motor World revealed that the factory in Rochester was a small shed, and the Michigan Motor Car Manufacturing Company, Ltd., was a stock-selling scheme. This one was found out more quickly than most others. The first Michigan Six was also the last.

Michigan Motor Car was just one of scores of auto manufacturing companies that came and went quickly during the infancy of the auto industry. In the first seven months of 1910, there were no less than 49 new motor car manufacturing concerns registered in the state of Michigan.

Vanished Rochester: Pavilion Hotel

2010-10-22T07:00:00.004-04:00

Rochester's first hotel was built by Elnathan Wilcox about 1839 - less that fifteen years after the village was platted - on the southwest corner of Third and Main Streets, and was originally known as the Pavilion Hotel. A two-story frame building and barn that sheltered the weary traveler and his horse, the Pavilion passed through several owners during its existence and had its name changed several times. In 1856, Harvey Bennett was the proprietor, and by 1877 Wilson Fenner was running the hotel as the Fenner House. A couple of years later, Oscar Comstock took over, and the hotel was known as the Comstock House.

On April 15, 1880, Rochester suffered a devastating fire that completely destroyed the Pavilion Hotel, then known as the Comstock House, and the Universalist Church. The Rochester Era described the chaotic scene:

At about twenty minutes before 12 last (Thursday) night fire was discovered bursting thru the roof of the Comstock House in this village, and before a general alarm could be sounded the entire roof of the building was enveloped in flames and all hope of saving the house was out of the question. Barnes' paper-mill whistle was sounded loud and long and the church bells rung out arousing the sleepers who rushed to the scene of the conflagration, unable, however, to render any assistance other than help remove some of the household effects.
...
The wind at the time was blowing briskly from the northeast filling the air with fire and cinders, which were wafted towards the Universalist Church and other buildings in that direction. Soon came the cry that the church was on fire which proved too true and notwithstanding people were on the roof with pails of water the upper portion was soon all ablaze and past saving.

The Comstock House and the church were total losses. The Universalist Society began almost immediately to rebuild, erecting a brick building that still stands today on Walnut St. The Comstock House was not rebuilt, and the lot sat vacant, to the chagrin of the townspeople, for nearly nine years before a new brick house, named the Sidney House, was opened in 1889. The name of the Sidney House was eventually changed to the Detroit Hotel, and on February 22, 1927, that building met the same fate as had it predecessor.

At Home in Rochester: Congregational Parsonage

2010-10-15T06:00:00.005-04:00

The beautiful Gothic revival residence on the northwest corner of Pine and Third streets was built in the summer of 1878 by the First Congregational Church of Rochester, for use as its parsonage. Church officials had been working to acquire a parsonage site for several years, but were unable to raise the necessary funds to secure property. They finally made progress when Lysander Woodward volunteered to buy and hold the desired lots while the congregation raised the balance of funds needed.

Finally, on April 17, 1878, ground was broken on the long-awaited parsonage. Lysander Woodward's son-in-law, noted architect John Scott of Detroit, designed the home, and Miles King of Rochester was the builder. The contracted amount for the construction was $1,100.00, plus $54.00 for a cistern and fence.

The Rochester Era described the new residence this way:

This parsonage is without exception the finest and most complete model of architectural beauty and elegance to be found in the township of Avon, and reflects abundant credit upon not only its architect, Mr. John Scott of Detroit, a son-in-law of Lysander Woodward, but also upon its builder, Mr. Miles King of this village, who of course was assisted by several first class workmen among whom were Mr. Hammond and Mr. Fenner, resident mechanics. The style of architecture is properly Gothic, although there may be perhaps some deviations from the strict letter of the original in a few of the details. The exterior of the structure is finely ornamental, and in a manner that exhibits much architectural taste and refinement, everything being in strict keeping with the rules governing the style. Some of the designs in the ornamentation are really unique and so skillfully executed as to excite our admiration. The bay-window, for instance, which beautifies the east front of the main structure is a model of its kind, being very elaborately finished and trimmed - not in an 'overdone' manner - but with exquisite taste and neatness, the workmanship harmonizing, as before intimated, with every tracery of the designs.

The new parsonage welcomed the pastor, the Rev. Mr. Brown, in January of 1879, and was used by the church until 1917, when the congregation decided that the house was too large for its purpose and voted to build a new parsonage immediately behind the church. The 1878 parsonage was authorized to be sold into private hands and has remained a private residence ever since.

Today, the 132-year-old house has been lovingly restored, and the Gothic Revival elements so that the Era editor found so endearing may still be admired. It is significant in our local history not only for its relationship to the oldest Congregational church in Michigan, but also because it is the work of John Scott, the architect of the 1902 Wayne County Building and the 84 East Ferry house, both of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Next time you pass the corner of Third and Pine, take a moment to admire this local historical treasure.

This postcard photo shows the Congregational church parsonage as it appeared about 1915.

Bygone Business: Purdy's Drug Store

2010-10-08T06:00:00.007-04:00

Those who lived in Rochester from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s will remember Purdy's Drug Store, located at 321 S. Main St., where the Janet Varner shop is today. Henry L. Purdy and his wife Elizabeth, who were originally from Columbiaville, Michigan, first owned a drug store in Clawson for nine years before buying the Rochester store from druggist W.E. Ford in the summer of 1944. Henry Purdy was very active in community affairs here during the eighteen years that he was a Main St. merchant; he served on the Board of Education and participated in Avon Players, Kiwanis Club and the Chamber of Commerce.

The Purdys sold the store to druggist Tom Hunter, who took over in January 1963. Coincidentally, back when Henry Purdy was in business in Clawson, a competing drug store across the street there was operated by Tom Hunter's father.

Henry and Elizabeth Purdy retired to their home near Columbiaville, in St. Clair County.

This advertisement for Purdy's Drug Store appeared in a 1947 issue of Lens Magazine, and is provided courtesy of Rod and Susan Wilson. The castor oil bottle is also from the Wilsons' collection.

This Month in Rochester History

2010-10-01T07:00:00.004-04:00

This month marks the 77th anniversary of the death of one of Rochester's most prominent early twentieth-century businessmen, James Wilson Smith. J.W. Smith was the proprietor of the Hotel St. James, located on the southwest corner of Main and University Drive (formerly Fifth St.), where the Bean and Leaf cafe is situated today.

Smith was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1847, and as a child immigrated with his family to Ontario. As a young man he ventured on to Michigan, where he worked as a wagon driver for a hotel in Pontiac. He worked in the hotel business for a couple of decades before deciding to try his hand at farming in Avon Township. His farm was a failure, and when the old Lambertson House in Rochester became available in 1890, James W. Smith bought it, refurbished it, and ran a highly successful hotel business there until his death on October 2, 1933.

The Hotel St. James was a hub of downtown activity for decades, and "Jim" Smith was an unabashed Rochester booster. He served as a member of the village council for six years and was always active in village affairs.

Local newspapers frequently noted that James W. Smith bore a striking resemblence to President William Howard Taft, and made a special point of being present to greet President Taft on each of his visits to Michigan.

James W. Smith died in his private apartment in the Hotel St. James at the age of 86 and was buried in Mount Avon Cemetery.

Rochester's Oldest Business

2010-09-25T11:28:00.004-04:00

Have you visited Rochester's oldest business lately? If you do, be sure to extend a "Happy Birthday" wish to the Rochester Elevator, celebrating the 130th anniversary of its founding this year. In the fall of 1880, brothers Charles K. and Albert G. Griggs opened their new grain elevator on the corner of Water St. and Fifth (now University Drive) and began shipping their first crops on the Detroit and Bay City Railroad line. The elevator has been in continuous operation at the same location ever since, making it the oldest business within the city limits of Rochester. Several owners have run the elevator during that span of time - although fewer than you would probably imagine - and the current owner has been at the helm for over half a century.

The Rochester Elevator is a downtown icon - one cannot help but notice the colorful advertising on the side of the building facing University Drive - and it has seen a lot of Rochester's history pass before it during the last century and a third. Think about it - Chester A. Arthur was President of the United States when the elevator first opened its doors! Happy Birthday, Rochester Elevator!

Train Wreck at Rochester

2010-09-18T08:37:00.004-04:00

Do you remember when the trains rumbled through Rochester? Growing up just a couple of blocks from the tracks, I was often rocked to sleep at night by the hypnotic clickety-clack of the cars passing through the north side of town. Rochester's last line was abandoned in 1998, and now we have peaceful recreational trails running along the former railroad beds.

In earlier days, however, it wasn't so peaceful with up to forty trains a day running through the village on both lines. Rochester also had its fair share of railroad-related accidents, as this story from the Pontiac Daily Press of September 21, 1906 tells us:

Engine Turns Turtle In Lake at Rochester

Brakes Fail to Work at Right Time and Locomotive Jumps Track

Rochester, Sept. 21 -- An unusual accident occurred near the depot here on the Michigan Central railroad yesterday morning. A heavily loaded stock train, southbound, was switching and being made up on the side track leaving the main track clear for the northbound passenger, which was about due. The rails were in such a slippery condition, owing to the slight rainfall in the morning, that the engineer of the freight found it difficult to manage the heavy train on the sharp grade at that place, and whistled for the brakes to be applied. For some inexplainable reason the brakes did not have the desired effect, and the engine with reversed levers was forced down the grade by the weight of the loaded cars. Although the engine was one of the largest on this line, being built with three huge drive wheels on each side, it was impossible to check the speed acquired by the cars while descending. Near the bottom of the grade, however, the brakes must have suddenly taken hold, as the huge engine suddenly jumped the track and turned turtle, plunging down a three foot embankment and into Chapman Lake, where it lay hissing in about four feet of water.

A peculiar feature of the accident is that beside the engine and tender, none of the other cars were thrown from the track, and also that the main line was not in the least obstructed to traffic. Both the engineer and fireman had barely time to jump clear of the falling locomotive as it became uncoupled from the train proper and pitched from the rails, careening dangerously over the steep embankment, before turning over to the lake where it lies upside down, the short smoke stack dug into the mud.

Need Large Wreckers
A wrecking crew was at once rushed to the spot, but found that the heavy engine, which weighs in the neighborhood of 40,000, would require more than an ordinary wrecking train carries to be pulled from its present watery resting place. The accident occurred yesterday morning about 11 a.m. and up to this noon, the huge engine was still in Chapman Lake, where it probably will be until some sort of a contrivance can be rigged up to lift it from the lake. The engine, except for a few minor damages, can probably be easily repaired, as the soft bottom of the lake served to break the force of the plunge.

Quite a spectacle that must have made for the citizens of Rochester, 104 years ago this week!

This 1908 plat map of the east side of the village shows how close the railroad line ran to the edge of Chapman Lake.

Vanished Rochester: Woodward School

2010-09-11T12:49:00.012-04:00

In the 1920s, the children of the village of Rochester were served by the school district known as Avon Township District #5. This school district operated two buildings along Wilcox St. between Fourth and Fifth (now University Drive), where all students from primary grades through high school were housed. But by the mid-1920s, however, enrollment pressure on the district was so great that plans were made to build another elementary school at the north end of the village. The site for the new school was on the street known as Sugar Avenue (which was renamed Woodward Street by the village council in 1927). Both the street and the school building thereon were named in honor of Rochester's pioneer farmer and politician, Lysander Woodward, whose farm had, in earlier days, encompassed the property where the new school was planned.

Ground was broken for Woodward School in April of 1926, with the firm of J.M. Olson of Pontiac doing the construction. The contract price for the two-room school was $21,345, not including plumbing, heating, and fixtures. The little school was ready to receive its first students by the end of that summer. Enrollment continued its upward trend, and Woodward School was expanded in 1928 to add two more rooms. Further additions were made in 1958 and 1967, but by then Woodward School was only one of several elementary schools in the now-consolidated (and much larger) Rochester Community School District.

Rapid subdivision development in Avon Township (now Rochester Hills) during the 1970s and early 1980s caused school district officials to re-evaluate the placement of the elementary schools, and they determined that Woodward School was no longer needed and ordered the building closed. The last day for students at Woodward was June 17, 1983, as the fifty-sixth class poured out of the doors for the final time. The following year, the Older Persons Commission (OPC) was located in the school, and occupied the building until October 2003, when a new OPC facility was opened. A few months later, Woodward School passed into the pages of Vanished Rochester as it fell to the wrecking ball to make room for a housing development.

The photos in this post are from the collection of Rod and Susan Wilson. They show the school as it looked just prior to and during demolition.

At Home in Rochester: The Clinton G. Griffey Residence

2010-09-05T06:00:00.008-04:00

The stately home at 444 West University Drive (formerly Fifth St.) was built in 1906 by newspaper publisher and politician Clinton George Griffey.

Griffey was not a native of Rochester, nor did he spend most of his productive working life here. He was born in Erie County, Pennsylvania in 1841, the grandson of a Welshman who was one of the earliest settlers of Erie County. The Griffeys were prominent citizens of the township of Conneaut, and on modern maps of that area landmarks such as Griffey Road and Griffey Cemetery can still be identified.

At age nineteen, C.G. Griffey was publisher of the Girard Union newspaper when the Civil War broke out. In 1862, he served fifteen days under arms in defense of Pennsylvania as a member of the 15th infantry regiment of Pennsylvania militia. As Robert E. Lee's forces were entering Maryland in the fall of 1862, Pennsylvanians feared for their state, and the governor called up all able-bodied men to join the militia in defense of the capital at Harrisburg. Griffey enlisted on September 12, 1862, and was discharged from service on September 27, 1862, after Confederate forces were defeated at Antietam and had retreated across the Potomac.

Griffey sold the Girard Union in 1864 and was involved with several other small newspapers before settling in Negaunee, Michigan in 1873, where he founded and published the Negaunee Iron Herald. During his years in Negaunee he entered politics, serving at the local level as postmaster and supervisor. He also served in the Michigan House of Representatives in 1880, and in the Michigan Senate in 1890.

Griffey paid a visit to Rochester in 1903 and liked the town so much that he decided to sell his newspaper in Negaunee and relocate here. He built three houses in town before erecting his fine residence at 444 W. Fifth (now University Drive) in 1906. The Griffey residence is one of several buildings in Rochester said to have been constructed with brick reclaimed from the demolition of the Detroit Sugar Company factory on Woodward St., which was razed in the same year that the Griffey house was built.

C.G. Griffey lived in the house at 444 W. Fifth until his death in June 1937. He was buried at Mount Avon Cemetery in his adopted home of Rochester.

The front of the building looks somewhat different today than it did in Griffey's time. The porch and front dormer were removed in 1962 and replaced with a two-story columned portico. The decorative ironwork on the roof was also removed, but still exists today on the carriage house at the rear of the building. Law offices currently occupy the building.

The Clinton G. Griffey residence is 104 years old this year.

This Month in Rochester History

2010-09-01T06:00:00.005-04:00

This month we observe the anniversary of a milestone event in the history of the Rochester Community Schools. On September 8, 1970, a second high school serving Rochester students became a reality when Rochester Adams High School opened its doors.

Rochester High School, which had opened its building at Walton & Livernois in 1956, was already bursting at the seams by the mid-1960s. Burgeoning enrollment was a product of the tremendous population growth in Avon Township (now Rochester Hills) as forty new subdivisions opened up in the period between 1956 and 1965. With the need for a second high school apparent, officials began the process of planning the new facility and forming its first classes. The 1969-70 school year was a difficult one for everybody, because the high school population was divided into two groups, with Rochester High students and faculty using the RHS building for one half of the day, and Rochester Adams students and faculty using the RHS building for the other half of the day.

Finally, Rochester Adams High School was ready for students, and 1,200 of them started the 1970-71 school year in their new building under the principalship of Ralph L. Hawes. The official dedication ceremonies were held on November 8, 1970, when representatives of the architectural firm of O'Dell, Hewlett and Luckenbach presented the $4.3 million dollar building to the community.

Rochester Adams High School celebrates its fortieth school year this month.

Note: Those readers who live in the Rochester area and are interested in the history of our schools are invited to attend the next meeting of the Rochester Avon Historical Society on Thursday, September 2 at 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium of the Rochester Hills Public Library, 500 Old Towne Rd. Rod Wilson will present "From Eight to One," the story of the rural school districts that were consolidated to form the Rochester school district.

Which Does Not Belong - Quiz Answers

2010-08-25T07:00:00.003-04:00

For all of you who have been waiting on pins and needles, here are the answers to last Friday's quiz:

Group 1: a) Eve's b) Shepard's c) Carmichael's d) The Hurling Green

Answer: c) Carmichael's does not belong. Eve's, Shepard's, and The Hurling Green were local bars. Carmichael's was a bus and taxi service.

Group 2: a) Woodruff b) Avon Center c) The Haven d) Lawnridge

Answer: d) Lawnridge does not belong. Woodruff, Avon Center and The Haven were the names of local hospitals. Lawnridge is the former Donald Wilson estate on Adams Road, now part of the University Presbyterian Church campus.

Group 3: a) Tienken b) Ross c) Hubbell d) Hamlin

Answer: a) Tienken does not belong. Although all four of these are names of pioneer families of Rochester and Avon, only Ross, Hubbell and Hamlin are also the names of local school districts. The Ross, Hubbell and Hamlin districts ceased to exist when the local districts were consolidated to form the Rochester Community Schools.

Group 4: a) Purple Pickle b) Morley's c) Gerda's d) Bebout's

Answer: b) Morley's does not belong. Purple Pickle, Gerda's and Bebout's were all names of local restaurants. Morley's is the name of the pharmacy that preceded Lytle's in the Opera House building.

Group 5: a) Larry Jerome b) Norman Hastings c) Dick Davis d) Ralph Garner

Answer: b) Norman Hastings does not belong. Larry Jerome, Dick Davis and Ralph Garner were all automobile dealers in town. Norman Hastings ran a Culligan soft water franchise on North Main St.

Group 6: a) Pixley's b) Krazy Kelly's c) Casual Concepts d) Alvin's

Answer: d) Alvin's does not belong. Pixley's, Krazy Kelly's and Casual Concepts were all furniture stores in the Rochester area. Alvin's was a ladies' apparel shop.

I hope you enjoyed the quiz. If you did, maybe we'll do this again some time!

Which Does Not Belong?

2010-08-20T17:54:00.002-04:00

Here's a fun quiz for those of you who know a lot about all things Rochester. In each group of four, one item does not belong. Can you correctly identify the stray item in each group? Just remember that "Rochester" refers to our combined communities of Rochester and Rochester Hills, so don't limit your thinking to the downtown area, or you might be led astray! I'll post the answers to the quiz on August 25.

Which Does Not Belong?

Group 1: a) Eve's b) Shepard's c) Carmichael's d) The Hurling Green
Group 2: a) Woodruff b) Avon Center c) The Haven d) Lawnridge
Group 3: a) Tienken b) Ross c) Hubbell d) Hamlin
Group 4: a) Purple Pickle b) Morley's c) Gerda's d) Bebout's
Group 5: a) Larry Jerome b) Dick Davis c) Norman Hastings d) Ralph Garner
Group 6: a) Pixley's b) Krazy Kelly's c) Casual Concepts d) Alvin's

Those are the easy ones. Next time, I'll make them difficult. Have fun!

Subdivision Stories: Juengel's Orchards

2010-08-13T07:00:00.004-04:00

It isn't very difficult to to discern the origin of the street names in the Juengel's Orchards subdivision. This plat, lying south of Hamlin Rd. and west of Rochester Road, was laid out in 1954 on the former farmlands of brothers Carl and Fred Juengel, who had taken over the property from their father, Herman R. Juengel.

Herman Juengel was born in Romeo in 1861 and lived for a time in Troy Township before moving to Avon Township around 1900. The property he owned near Hamlin & Rochester was operated for many years as an orchard, and when his sons and their wives eventually decided to subdivide the farm, they named the streets in the new plat for varieties of apples and cherries.

The ranch homes that were built in the Juengel's Orchards subdivision were situated on large lots and were affordable to those looking to escape the city and own their own homes "in the country." The helped to house the great population boom that Avon Township experiences in the post-WWII decade.

The Juengel's Orchard subdivision celebrates its 56th birthday this year.

Vanished Rochester: Rochester Shell Service

2010-08-07T16:24:00.006-04:00

The Rochester Shell service station at 205 S. Main St. was opened in February of 1942 by Orville E. Quick, who had operated a previous filling station on the other side of Main Street for many years before. Frank Rewold was the general contractor for the new facility, and the station was described as "one of the finest in Michigan" in its grand opening advertisement.

Orville Quick died in 1951, and Russ Williams bought the business from his heirs. Williams operated the Rochester Shell Service until March 1958, when Eugene Byers purchased it and combined his wrecker service with the gas station. Byers had previously been associated with Dean Lee in another filling station and wrecker service on South Main St., but in 1952 the Lee and Byers firm had been dissolved with Lee operating the service station and Byers operating the towing business.

Eugene Byers and his brother, Norm, operated the Byers Shell Service and Byers Wrecker Service from the corner of Second and Main for nearly thirty years. The wrecker yard was located directly behind the service station to the west, where the carcasses of wrecked vehicles were on display for all of the town to see. Byers eventually moved the wrecker yard to a larger location on South Street (where it is still located today) and gave up the service station business to concentrate exclusively on towing and recovery. The service station building was razed in the mid-1980s to make way for the boutique business suites currently occupying the site.

This view of the Rochester Shell Service dates from the 1940s when Orville E. Quick was the proprietor.

This Month in Rochester History

2010-08-01T06:00:00.002-04:00

In 2010, troops all over the country are celebrating the centennial of the founding of the Boy Scouts of America. And this month, we observe the anniversary of the naming of Rochester's first Eagle Scout, Allen R. Wilson.

The Rochester Clarion issue of August 12, 1927 announced the happy news:

ROCHESTER HAS ITS FIRST EAGLE SCOUT
Rochester's first Eagle Scout is the title Allen Rae Wilson now holds, he having been presented with the highest ranking badge at the closing Camp Pontiac council fire at Tommy's Lake Friday night. Allen Rae joined the Rochester Boy Scout troop May 30, 1924, and became a second class scout August 3, 1924, and a first class, March 17, 1925.
. . .
This is the second year that Allen Rae has served as commissary clerk for the Boy Scout camp at Tommy's Lake. He is 16 years old, and holds 23 merit badges, which are awarded for proficiency in special lines of endeavor.

Allen Wilson was the son of Dr. Robert Hugh Wilson, who was chief veterinarian of Parke-Davis & Co., and was the director of the Parkedale Biological Farms. Wilson told me in a 1980 interview that his father had served as chairman of the committee that first brought the Boy Scouts to Rochester, and served on the troop committee for many years.

This portrait of Allen R. Wilson is from his high school yearbook (RHS Class of 1929) and was provided from the collection of Rod and Susan Wilson.

Bygone Business: Davey's Market

2010-07-24T14:20:00.004-04:00

In the days before supermarkets, Rochester had small grocery stores scattered all over town. One of these was Davey's Market, located at 1012 North Main St., corner of Lysander. The 60x90 foot store was built during the fall of 1945 and winter of 1946, and held its grand opening celebration in February 1946. Proprietor Thomas E. Davey offered a food locker department with a meat processing section that included a rendering room, smokehouse, and a room for picking and dressing of fowl. There were 624 frozen food lockers available for rent by customers.

Davey and his wife had bought out the former George Cook market in early 1945 and immediately began plans to build a modern store. The Daveys eventually sold the store and retired from business, but the new owner decided to retain the Davey name because it was by then well known in Rochester. Davey's operated until the mid-1960s, by which time the supermarkets had sounded the death knell for small town grocery stores. A furniture store succeeded Davey's in the building at 1012 N. Main, and a variety of other businesses followed after that. The structure was most recently the home of the Rochester Elks Club.

I grew up in the neighborhood near Davey's Market, and my clearest memory of the store is the small freezer case just inside the front door which held the "push-up" freezer pops. I remember being treated to the freezer pops on a number of occasions as a small child. I have no idea what else the store might have sold!

This advertisement for Davey's Market is from a March 1946 newspaper.

Main Street Stories: Paint Creek Tavern

2010-07-17T15:03:00.005-04:00

The Paint Creek Tavern at 613 N. Main St. is known with affection among long-time Rochester residents as the PCYC, or Paint Creek Yacht Club (it's located on a waterway, after all!). Today it is a treasured local watering hole and gathering place, the quintessential neighborhood tavern, but it has its roots in the days of the interurban streetcar.

Walter W. Brown and James Dungerow established their lunch stand on the location of today's PCYC in 1919. The location was a strategic one, being directly across Main St. from the Detroit United Railway's powerhouse and car barns. The Brown & Dungerow stand was patronized by the DUR workers and streetcar riders alike, who purchased popcorn, beverages and sandwiches from the business.

No alcohol was being sold in those days – Michigan had gone dry on May 1, 1918, and Oakland County had been dry under a local option vote since 1916. Nationwide prohibition followed the state vote and lasted until 1933. As soon as it was once again legal to sell beer in Michigan – in June of 1933 - village officials granted a liquor license to Brown & Dungerow's tavern, and about 1934, as the country struggled upward from the depths of the Great Depression, the partners built the current structure at Main St. and Paint Creek. When James Dungerow later bowed out of the business, Walter Brown continued to operate it under the name Brownie's Tavern.

In December of 1947, Walter Brown retired from business after 28 years and sold the bar to Harold and Frank Snover. Snover's Tavern became the Paint Creek Tavern in the mid-1950s, and has carried that name for the past half century, through a succession of owners following the Snovers. A group of regular patrons of the bar bestowed the nickname “Paint Creek Yacht Club” or PCYC for short, going so far as to adopt an official logo and print up membership cards.

The streetcars no longer rumble past on Main Street, but Paint Creek Tavern continues to offer food and refreshment on the banks of Paint Creek, just as Brown & Dungerow set out to do 91 years ago.

I have a feeling that there are more stories about the PCYC out there waiting to be told. Readers?

This view of the Paint Creek Tavern from the collection of Rod and Susan Wilson shows what the building looked like before its 1997 renovation.

Grave Robbery

2010-07-10T16:45:00.006-04:00

GRAVE ROBBERS CAUGHT - Two Resurrectionists Arrested at Rochester With Three Dead Bodies Stolen At Oxford Thursday Night. That was the headline in the Detroit Free Press of December 13, 1879, alerting local officials to a heinous crime being committed in the Rochester area.

The story unfolded at the old Pavilion Hotel in Rochester, by this time also known as the Comstock House, which was located on the southwest corner of Third and Main streets. In 1879 the proprietor of the house was Oscar F. Comstock, who was also a deputy sheriff and local constable. The Free Press tells us what happened:

About three weeks since, two men put up at the Pavilion for a short time. They talked but little, made few acquaintences, and in various ways became an object of suspicion by the landlord. After they left Comstock recalled several minor matters, and on comparing notes with his clerk, concluded to watch the individuals should the opportunity present itself. On Wednesday evening of the present week their opportunity arrived.
Two men, aged apparently about 28 years, drove up to the Pavilion in a light spring wagon drawn by one horse, and said they were going to stop over night. Their horse was cared for, and the men registered themselves as Thomas Wilson and James Jamison, both of Pontiac. The clerk, in Mr. Comstock's absence, recognized them as the two individuals who had aroused some suspicion a few weeks previous, and he determined on an investigation. In the wagon-box were two large trunks, and the clerk, watching his opportunity, opened one of them. He found it to contain a short bar, a stout rope, a spade, a pick-ax and such like paraphernalia. He also noticed some clots of blood and hair adhering to some of the tools. Before any definite plan of action could be decided on the men next morning ordered their horse, paid their bill and went away.
About 8 o'clock Friday morning the same men and their conveyance put in another appearance at the Pavilion and were provided with accommodation. The proprietor slipped into the barn, opened one of the trunks, which was not so securely fastened as the other, and brought to view the dead body of a man in grave habiliments. Then the truth occurred to him. Watching his guests until they were close together Landlord Comstock confronted them with a revolver and ordered them to throw up their hands. They complied, and in an instant were secured. Finding no key on their persons Comstock pried open the other trunk and found two more bodies packed therein -- one of a man about 7o years of age and one of a woman perhaps five years younger. In a very short time the hotel was the scene of considerable excitement. Apparently the whole village congregated to view the three bodies, which had been removed from the trunks and carefully laid out on blankets. In a little while two bodies were recognized as those of James Dove and Robert Einslee, who had only two or three days since been buried in the Oxford Cemetery -- fourteen miles distant. The body of the woman, who had evidently been buried longer, was not recognized at last accounts, but is believed to have been "snatched" from the same cemetery. Telegrams of inquiry were sent to Oxford.
Mr. Comstock loaded up a wagon with his prisoners, including a tramp who had been picked up the night previous for robbing Harrison's shoe shop, and, assisted by Messrs. Bennett and Hadley, brought them to Pontiac.

This report in the Detroit Free Press reminded me of a 1975 oral history interview with George Saam (1898-1983) of Rochester, who recalled that his father, acting as town constable, also fought against grave robbers at Mount Avon Cemetery. Saam disclosed that the body snatchers would

...come up and open your grave up, put a hook put around your head, they'd yank you up, take you over to the university down in Ann Arbor, and get about fifty bucks for you. That would have to be done in about the first ten days you was in there, 'cause embalming wasn't as good them days as it is now. You'd get people to watch your grave. People that had money would have my dad or somebody go up there and watch their graves. They'd know about when these guys were coming, and get in there and open the graves up. I bet in the old cemetery, there's a third of the people went in there aren't in there anymore, because they went to the university. If you'd happen to get into somebody's grave that was being watched, the judge would probably fine the dickens out of you for that, but it wasn't against the law to open a grave up – didn't seem to be, anyway – to open a grave up and steal that person out of there.

By the late 1870s, some states were beginning to pass laws against this kind of grisly activity, but up until that time, grave robbery was commonplace in all communities that were within one night's wagon ride of a medical school. The medical department of the University of Michigan was known to pay in the neighborhood of $30-50 dollars for "fresh" cadavers, and in those days, competition for cadavers among the nation's medical school was keen enough to keep these ghoulish entrepreneurs in business.

At Home in Rochester: The William Deats Residence

2010-07-04T07:00:00.006-04:00

The Eastlake Victorian house at 302 W. University Drive, on the northwest corner of Pine, is commonly referred to as the Flumerfelt residence but was actually built by Dr. William Deats and his wife, Harriet. Dr. Deats was born in Northampton County, Pennsylvania in 1847. His home town there was Lower Mt. Bethel township, in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia. Deats was graduated from Lafayette College in nearby Easton in 1874, then went on to earn his M.D. degree at Jefferson Medical College and a Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania in 1877.

Following the completion of his college education, William Deats relocated to Rochester, Michigan, where he established a medical practice in the fall of 1878. His reason for choosing to move to Rochester is unknown, but several people from his home in Pennsylvania were already living in this area, included Reuben Immick, the William Fox family, and Francis Stofflet, who was teaching school in Rochester at the time.

In the fall of 1880, Dr. Deats married Harriet Ann “Hattie” Sprague, the youngest daughter of the late Dr. Rollin Sprague. He doubtless met Hattie Sprague through Francis Stofflet, who was by that time married to Hattie's older sister, Mary Sprague. The following spring, Dr. and Mrs. Deats were expecting their first child and on April 13, 1881, Hattie Sprague purchased from her mother, Adaline Sprague, lots 8 and 9 in Sprague's Addition to the village of Rochester for the sum of $400.

The Rochester Era followed the progress of construction on the Deats house throughout the summer of 1881. The newspaper reported that the $1800 contract to build a house for Dr. Deats on the lot lying west of Adaline Sprague's residence had been granted to John Ross & Co. The selection of Ross to build the Deats home is not surprising, since he was also a native of Lower Mt. Bethel, Pennsylvania, and had lived near the Deats family before migrating to Michigan. Among the buildings constructed by John Ross & Co. were the Griggs Brothers Grain Elevator (now the Rochester Elevator), the Universalist Church, and the Congregational Church. (When Ross retired from the building trade, he sold his contracting business to his son-in-law, Daniel B. Kressler. Kressler, in turn, was eventually bought out by Dillman & Upton.)

The Era reported in early June of 1881 that the frame of the Deats house was being raised, and in October, made this comment:

Dr. Deats has been grading his dooryard, and will have a beautiful lawn in time. His new residence is almost ready for occupancy, and is an honor to the village.

The newspaper informed its readers two weeks later that the Deats family was in residence in the new home, and soon after reported that Dr. Deats was building a barn on the premises.

William and Harriet Deats did not stay long in Rochester, however. In May of 1884, Deats moved his family back to Easton, Pennsylvania and leased their Rochester home to E.L. Torrey. On February 2, 1885, Hattie Deats sold the house and property to William C. Flumerfelt for the sum of $2100. Flumerfelt, a retired farmer from Oakland Township, lived in the house with his wife, Elizabeth “Libbie” Axford until his death in 1906, and his widow continued to live there until her own death in 1924.

After the death of Libbie Flumerfelt, ownership of the house passed to her nephew, Henry Wood Axford. Henry Axford, an attorney, had been orphaned at the age of nine and lived with a succession of relatives before being taken in by Libbie Flumerfelt. He made his aunt's residence at 302 W. Fifth St. his home for most of the rest of his life, and was the last to use the house as a private residence. Among the occupants of the Deats house since the early 1970s have been a physician's office, the De Nike import store, the Objects & Images gallery, and the Andre & Co. salon. The carriage house was for a time the home of a paperback book store. The house is currently occupied by La Dolce Vita Spa and Salon.

The William Deats residence celebrates its 129th birthday this summer.

This 1897 view of the Deats residence was taken during the time that the house was occupied by William C. and Libbie Axford Flumerfelt.

This Month in Rochester History

2010-07-01T07:00:00.002-04:00

This month we observe the 115th anniversary of the founding of the Rochester Fire Department. When Rochester was incorporated as a village in 1869, no fire department was established. In those days, fires were fought by friends and neighbors with an old-fashioned bucket brigade when the need arose. As the village grew, this approach became inadequate to protect life and property.

The village was prompted to take action after a devastating fire destroyed the former Pavilion Hotel at Third and Main streets on April 16, 1880. Newspaper accounts of the time note that only the favorable direction of the wind prevented the entire downtown from being engulfed. After the fire, the village council voted to purchase some ladders, buckets, pike poles and ropes, and a fire warden was appointed to take charge of the equipment. However, without an organized fire department, response to fires in the village was still somewhat haphazard.

After the village constructed a waterworks and laid water mains within the village in 1894, serious talk about establishing a proper fire department began in earnest. On July 1, 1895, the Rochester Village Council adopted a resolution created two hose companies, a hook and ladder company, and the office of chief engineer. The charter fire department was led by chief engineer James W. Smith of the Hotel St. James, and hose company captains J.W. Horn and H. J. Peters.

For over a century, the Rochester Fire Department has defended life and property, and on more than one occasion has saved the downtown business district from devastation. The department is governed by time-honored tradition established in 1895 and has been a family institution, with multiple sets of fathers, sons and brothers on its historical roster.

For anyone interested in a complete history of the department, I highly recommend William A. Cahill's The Rochester Fire Department: A Centennial History, 1895-1995. If you encounter one of our dedicated Rochester fire fighters this month, be sure to extend happy birthday greetings!

This 1895 photo of the charter Rochester Fire Department is one of my favorites. Notice the young boy peering beneath the wagon in the center background.

Subdivision Stories: Sprague's Addition

2010-06-26T13:51:00.003-04:00

Sprague's Addition to the village of Rochester was laid out in 1877, making it the third addition to the town's original 1826 plat. The property was owned by Dr. Rollin Sprague and his wife Adaline L. Cooper Sprague, who had made their home in the village after their marriage in 1839. The Spragues built and operated the "Old Stone Store" at the corner of Third and Main, the building we know today as the Home Bakery. They owned for a time a farm on South Hill that was more widely known in later years as the Butts Farm, and maintained a grand residence in the village, on a forty acre farm they owned on the north side of Fifth St. (now University Drive), just west of Main.

After Rollin Sprague died in 1872, his widow subdivided and sold most of her property on West Fifth St. The subdivision fronted Fifth St. and extended west from the family residence to Madison Ave., while Pine and Oak streets were extended northward through the new plat, ending at Sixth St. Lots in Sprague's Addition went on the market in May of 1878, and new houses were soon springing up on the former family farm.

Sprague's Addition celebrates its 133rd birthday this year.