Remembering Rochester

Subdivision Stories: New School

2010-01-04T18:23:00.003-05:00

In 1916, the brand-new Rochester High School building at the corner of Fifth (University Drive) & Wilcox streets was opened to students. It was the town's first school building specifically designed to house the high school students, and it was dedicated with great fanfare.

During the same time period that the new school was being planned and built, real estate developers were platting the property lying to the west of the school between Fifth Street and the southern village limits. Principal among them was the partnership of Kapp and Ritchey, whose Auburn Gardens Land Company had developed the Alhambra Gardens and Curry Hills subdivisions on the west side of the village of Rochester in 1913. Kapp and Ritchey's new subdivision, laid out and sold in 1916 and including the streets known as Helen, Taylor, Castell, Roselawn and Fairview, was named “New School” because it offered housing opportunities within easy walking distance of the new school.

The developers were Ruth Adelaide Kapp and Paul Harden Ritchey and his wife, Addie V. Ritchey. P.H. Ritchey had offices in Pontiac and Windsor and traveled extensively in his quest to locate investment properties. Ruth A. Kapp was a real estate investor based in Ann Arbor and Pontiac. Her father, John Kapp, was a physician who served at one time as mayor of Ann Arbor. Another physician, Dr. Daniel G. Castell, a prominent citizen of Pontiac, was apparently a close friend of Ruth A. Kapp; she honored him by naming a street for him in the Alhambra Gardens subdivision when it was created in 1913. The street was continued through the Curry Hills and Oakdale subdivisions, and eventually, through the New School subdivision. At the time, Ruth Kapp was living in Pontiac on Roselawn Street, and she apparently named another street in New School in honor of her Pontiac address.

The features of the New School subdivision were proudly enumerated in advertisements of the day. Lots could be hand for as little as $75. A large display ad running in the Rochester Era during July of 1916 described the amenities:

The New School Subdivsion lots are large, high, dry and have nicely graded streets. During recent years it has been discovered that the English Walnut tree will thrive and bear well in Michigan. These are the thin-shelled nuts you buy from your grocer for 20c to 25c per pound. We are going to plant an English Walnut tree on the front part of every lot in the New School subdivision early next spring. We will also plant one nice Maple tree in front of every lot.
...
The location of the property is ideal. The main trunk line running out of the city towards the west, Fifth St., passes on the north side of the property. It is also intersected by Third and First Streets. The big schools are nearby.
There are no railroads or car tracks to cross in going to these schools, and the mothers never need to worry about the little ones going or coming. All churches are within easy walking distance of this property, and it is only a few minutes' walk into the heart of the business district.

Kapp & Ritchey must have made their case very effectively with prospective buyers, for every lot in the New School subdivision was sold during the two sale weekends. The developers, finding themselves in the desirable situation of having more buyers than available lots to sell, immediately opened another subdivision the following month.

This advertisement from the Rochester Era lists the terms of purchase for lots in the New School subdivision.

This Month in Rochester History

2010-01-01T07:00:00.003-05:00

Do you refer to University Drive in Rochester as Fifth Street? If so, you are saying something about yourself! It was fifty-one years ago today, on January 1, 1959, that Fifth Street officially became known as University Drive. The village fathers changed the name of the street because they wanted to acknowledge the presence of the newly-founded Michigan State University-Oakland (later to become Oakland University), located a few miles west of town on the former Meadow Brook Stock Farm of Alfred and Matilda Dodge Wilson.

Rochester was eager in those days to become a "college town" of sorts. Although the MSUO campus lay partially in Avon Township and partially in Pontiac Township (now Auburn Hills), area leaders were successful in encouraging the school to adopt a Rochester mailing address and a Rochester identity. Renaming Fifth Street was part of their effort to ensure that Rochester would be considered the "home" of Oakland University.

This view of Fifth Street, from the collection of the Rochester Hills Public Library, was taken in the mid-1920s, when the boulevard still existed. The camera is looking west.

Main Street Stories: 415-417 S. Main

2009-12-29T07:00:00.000-05:00

The business block at 415-417 S. Main might appropriately be called the Palmer Block after the jeweler and optician who built it, but the label also rightly applies to the entire row of storefronts from 405-417 S. Main.

Louis Eugene Palmer, who built his first commercial building at 405-405 S. Main Street in 1883, bought adjoining lots in the same block and was soon the landlord for several businesses on the west side of Main between Fourth and Fifth (now University Drive). The double storefront at 415-417 was built about 1896-97; when it was ready for occupancy, Palmer moved his jewelry store up the block from its previous location to 417; 415 was occupied by William J. Fraser, who ran a harness making operation there in addition to his justice of the peace office.

Palmer's son, Fred, and daughter, Pauline, followed him into the business and even operated stores in competition with their father at various times. The 417 S. Main location was a Palmer jewelry store until 1935, when the senior Palmer died in his apartment above the business.

Tenants in the 415 location have included Brownell's Grocery in the 1920s, and Baldy Benson's barber shop in the 1930s and 1940s; later occupants were Joe's Barber Shop, Wayne Heating and Cooling and Del Van Skiver's Avon Photography. The 417 side of the building was the home of the House of Custom Colors for a couple of decades, and was also a Sherwin Williams paint store for a time. In recent years, a variety of businesses have come and gone from the location.

In 1960, a major renovation of the building exterior replaced the original facade with a faux-colonial design, eliminating the cornice and the windows across the front of the second floor. The building is currently undergoing an historic restoration of the Main Street elevation which will return it to its 1897 appearance.

This postcard view of 415-417 S. Main shows the building when it was occupied by the Louis E. Palmer jewelry store and William J. Fraser's harness-making shop and justice of the peace office. Notice the clock on the pole in front of the store, styled as a pocket watch.

Vanished Rochester: The RHS Bridge

2009-12-26T15:58:00.003-05:00

When Rochester's high school students moved from the old school at the corner of Fifth & Wilcox to their brand new school at the corner of Walton & Livernois in the fall of 1956, they had to adjust to living with a very unfamiliar building layout. Architects had designed the new RHS to be expanded as future enrollment might require, with two long wings extending eastward from a center hub. If a student had a class at the end of the south wing, which extended to the gymnasium, followed by a class in the north wing, the walk was almost impossible to make through the school corridors in the allotted time between bells.

The problem was solved as the result of a 1966 bond issue which funded the addition of a swimming pool in the gymnasium complex and an auditorium adjacent to the music classrooms on the north wing. To connect the north and south wings at their eastern ends, a covered pedestrian bridge was built from the gym to the auditorium, and it was opened to students in January of 1968. The Rochester Clarion announced the happy news:

Students at Rochester High will be saving miles of walking next week when this novel bridge is expected to open, linking two distant wings of the building. The bridge connects to the two front wings and will greatly cut congestion in the present main hall. Many students now dash through the cold across the concourse to reach classes on time.

In terms of its practical use, the RHS bridge turned out to be a short-lived feature of the building. By the time that my class arrived in the halls of RHS, only five years after the bridge had been opened, it was already off limits to student traffic. The north end of the walkway was blocked off and was used to house a student store, unimaginatively named "The Bridge." The south end of the walkway was used to store chairs, dollies and other paraphernalia needed in the gym. Once again, students were dashing across the lawn in order to make it from one wing to the other before the second bell rang.

A major expansion and renovation of the high school building in 1986 enclosed the former main courtyard area to accommodate a new media center and more gymnasium space, and that construction project consigned the RHS bridge to the pages of Vanished Rochester.

This photo shows part of the bridge as it entered the gymnasium complex at the end of the south wing.

Subdivision Stories: Belle Cone Gardens

2009-12-18T13:40:00.002-05:00

The Belle Cone Gardens subdivision was laid out in Section 33 of Avon Township, along the Avon/Troy boundary, in late 1926 and early 1927. The development was part of a post-World War I building boom that exploded in southern Avon Township along the Auburn/South Boulevard corridor. Belle Cone was one of several subdivisions that transformed the farmlands of Avon into affordable housing lots for laborers in the Pontiac automobile factories.

The subdivision lies on land that was owned by one of Avon's pioneer settlers, Linus Cone, who first came to Michigan from points east in 1821, and purchased land in Section 33 of Avon Township in 1826. He met and married Mary Crooks (of the family for whom Crooks Road is named) in the following year, and the couple farmed their land and reared three sons there. Linus Cone was well-known in agricultural circles for espousing modern farming theories and practices, and he also served for a time as editor and publisher of the Michigan Farmer. He lived on his farm in Avon until his death in 1875; the property eventually passed into the hands of his son, Frederick W. Cone, and then later to Frederick's widow, Annabelle "Belle" Cone.

In October 1926, the first of three plats for the development known as Belle Cone Gardens was filed on behalf of Belle Cone and several investors. The names of the subdivision streets reflect the names of the project's investors and developers. Belle Cone's partners were Detroit real estate broker Leslie J. Leinbach and his wife Grace; Leslie Leinbach's partner, Harry B. Leinbach, and his wife Rose; Mildred D. Decker; and Samuel W. Smith and his wife Alida DeLand Smith. Belle Cone Gardens includes streets named for the Cone family, Grace Leinbach, Mildred Decker, Alida DeLand Smith, and Samuel W. Smith.

Samuel W. Smith is another prominent figure connected to Belle Cone Gardens. Smith served as prosecuting attorney of Oakland County, was a member of the Michigan legislature, and served in the United States House of Representatives from 1897 to 1915. During his years in Congress he was known as a champion of the extension of rural free mail delivery.

The Belle Cone Gardens subdivision is 83 years old this year.

Vanished Rochester: DeLisa's

2009-12-10T20:23:00.005-05:00

In 1942, the area immediately north of Tienken and Rochester roads was "out in the country." National Twist Drill had only recently moved to the area from Detroit, and the rest of the Township of Avon that lay directly north of the village limits was still rural in character. Today, a wealth of dining and entertainment options are available at that very corner, but in 1942, Floyd L. and Oliver Relyea were the first on the scene.

On July 2, 1942, the Rochester Clarion announced that the Relyeas were about to open a new dining and dancing hall called Relyea Acres at 6980 N. Rochester Rd. Nine years later, in 1951, John DeLisa took over the business and changed its name to DeLisa's Restaurant. DeLisa's specialized in pizza pies, a fast-food delicacy that was just beginning to gain popularity in the United States at that time.

DeLisa's closed in September of 1968 and the restaurant building was torn down the following year to make way for the construction of a gas station.

The advertisement shown here is one that appeared in the Rochester Clarion in 1955.

Main Street Stories: George Burr Building

2009-12-06T19:51:00.005-05:00

The building at 429 S. Main is the only older building in the downtown business district that has had only two retail occupants in its entire history. Hardware and implement dealer George Burr built the store in 1914, after he had outgrown his previous location across the street at 418 S. Main. George Burr was the brother of fellow Rochester merchants Charles A. Burr, builder of the Opera House block at 4th and Main, and Frank H. Burr, who built a two-store block to the immediate south of the Opera House block.

In 1920, George Burr retired from the business he had founded and passed the management of the store to his daughter, Neva, and her husband, Ward Crissman. When Ward Crissman died suddenly in 1935, Neva Crissman brought her own daughter, Arlene, and son-in-law Leon Robertson into the business, and they continued to manage it until they decided to close the hardware store and sell the building in June of 1965.

On August 30, 1965, the grand opening of Green's Artist Supply was held, introducing to Rochester residents only the second business ever located in the building. Forty-four years later, Green's still occupies the building erected by George Burr in 1914.

The George Burr building celebrated its 95th birthday this year.

This ca. 1961 photo from the collection of Marjorie and the late Walter Dernier shows the building at 429 S. Main while it was still occupied by the Burr Hardware.

This Month in Rochester History

2009-12-01T07:00:00.004-05:00

This month is the forty-first anniversary of one of the most devastating fires in Rochester's downtown business district. In the early morning hours of December 12, 1968, a fire started in the Case's Hardware building at 335 S. Main Street. The blaze was first discovered at about 4:15 a.m. when a resident of one of the apartments in the National Bank of Detroit building next door was awakened by strange noises and realized that the adjacent hardware store was burning. The apartment resident called the fire department and awakened his neighbors, insuring that everyone was safely evacuated and possibly saving several lives through his actions.

According to William A. Cahill's history of the Rochester Fire Department, the Case's fire was a three-floor attack that was difficult work for the firefighters. Additional alarms were sounded and brought the Brooklands, Avondale and Lake Orion fire departments to the scene. By 5:20 a.m., the Troy fire department had responded to a fifth alarm after Rochester's veteran 1937 Seagrave truck blew a hose line. As firefighters attacked the fire from the Main Street side of the building using Troy's brand new aerial truck, others fought the fire from the alley side, elevated in the bucket of a Detroit Edison truck.

Cahill relates that the blaze was further fueled by the flammable goods and chemicals normally found in hardware stores. The intense heat of the fire also ignited the live ammunition stored there, making the firefighters feel as though they were in a war zone.

Weather conditions worked in the firefighters' favor, as the temperature was above freezing and winds were not a factor. Firefighters were able to save the surrounding buildings and there was no loss of life or serious injury.

Case's Hardware, however, was a total loss. The inferno had completely gutted the building and collapsed the storefront. My dad remembers that the huge safe in the office had fallen to the basement when the floor collapsed, and Byers' wrecker had a very difficult time pulling it out of the rubble. The losses were estimated at more than $100,000, and the cause of the fire was never precisely determined because of the utter destruction of the building. Case's Hardware, which had been a fixture at that location since horse and buggy days, never re-opened. The rubble of the old building was removed from the site and a new, one-story structure replaced it at 335 S. Main.

This photo from the collection of Marjorie and the late Walter Dernier was taken about 1960, and shows how the building appeared at the time of its destruction. The original storefront had been covered with the "modern" facade in 1955.

Hills Theatre Cat's Meow Now Available

2009-11-25T16:16:00.003-05:00

As mentioned in a previous post about the Hills Theatre, the Rochester Avon Historical Society has selected the Hills and the Flummerfelt house as the subjects of their 2009 Cat's Meow figures. These items have arrived and are now available in local stores. The figure of the Hills Theatre is shown here, and carries the opening and closing dates of the business on the marquee.

Cat's Meow figures make great Christmas gifts, and you'll find other popular subjects in the collection as well, including the D&C, the PCYC and the train depot, among others. They are available at Holland’s Florist, the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm, Dillman & Upton, Framer’s Workshop and Lytle’s Pharmacy, or by visiting the Rochester Avon Historical Society web site.

Window Night

2009-11-21T17:43:00.002-05:00

This year, on the Monday following Thanksgiving, downtown Rochester merchants will kick off the holiday shopping season with their Lagniappe celebration, an annual event since 1973. When I was growing up in the 1960s, the Rochester Chamber of Commerce encouraged Christmas shopping with a promotion called Window Night. The program started in the week before Thanksgiving, when participating stores displayed prize merchandise in their front windows, along with a poster containing a winning number that was kept covered up until the appointed time. As shoppers visited the stores to conduct their normal business, they would be given numbered tickets. The shopper retained the ticket, hoping it would match the store's number to be revealed on Window Night.

On the actual evening of Window Night, the sidewalks were filled with people waiting for the fire siren to blow at 7:00 p.m., signaling the official unveiling of the winning numbers. Merchants uncovered their numbers, and shoppers moved from store window to store window, pressing their noses to the glass to compare their tickets to the posted numbers. A shopper holding a winning number was rewarded with the prize merchandise displayed by the merchant whose number matched the shopper's ticket. There was plenty of merriment and everybody enjoyed the excitement of searching for winning numbers while browsing the shops and looking at the Christmas lights along Main Street.

Of course, the holiday light display on Main was much more modest than the one we have today. It consisted of garland and colored light bulbs strung across Main from light pole to light pole, with a three red plastic bells in the center hanging right over the middle of the street. Each bell had a light bulb inside and the bulbs were sequenced to blink off and on going from left to center to right and back again, to simulate the motion of a ringing bell. The effect was charming but sometimes made it a challenge to pick out the traffic lights that were hanging near the bells.

The Window Night promotion was replaced by Rochester's own version of the Creole tradition of Lagniappe, "a little something extra," in 1973. The garland and the bells were retired years ago, and now we are a regional sensation with the Big Bright Light Show. Lagniappe will be held on November 30 this year, and the Big Bright Light Show will open on that evening at 7:00 p.m. Click here for details.

Main Street Stories: Hills Theatre Building

2009-11-16T07:00:00.015-05:00

The Hills Theatre Building at 412-416 S. Main Street was built in 1941 by the proprietor of the Avon Theatre, Charles L. Sterns. Ground was broken in May 1941, just a few months before the nation entered World War II. Sterns built his new theatre on a vacant parcel that had been a used car lot owned by Ford dealer Larry Jerome.

The new Hills Theatre drew its name from Rochester's slogan, "The Heart of the Hills." As opening day drew near, owner Sterns announced that the older, smaller Avon Theatre across the street would operate on Friday and Saturday nights only, offering second-run double features and serials. The large and modern Hills, on the other hand, would serve as Rochester's premiere movie palace, operating every night with early and late showings plus a Sunday afternoon matinee. The opening night program featured Fibber McGee and Molly with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy in Look Who's Laughing.

The auditorium of the Hills had a seating capacity of 820, and was lavishly appointed. An article announcing the theatre's grand opening in a January 1942 issue of the Rochester Clarion described it as follows:

The wood trim throughout the theatre is of light birch wood. Fluorescent light tubes of various colors line the walls on either side of the theatre. Indirect lighting will light up the foyer and lobby which have been decorated in rich tones of blue and pink.
The flooring in the lobby is a terrazzo composition and rich, maroon carpeting will cover the flooring in the theatre foyer and down the aisles in the auditorium.
...
The seats are of maroon plush upholstery. The overdrapes around the proscenium of the theatre stage are of maroon velvet.

The front of the building was faced with Vitrolite, an opaque colored glass tile that was popular in the era and was featured on many Art Deco buildings.

The architects of the Hills Theatre building were partners Lavern R. Bennett and Eugene D. Straight of Dearborn. Bennett & Straight specialized in theatre design and were also the architects of the Main Theatre in Royal Oak, the Bloomfield Theatre in Birmingham, the Allen Park cinemas, and the La Parisien Theatre in Garden City, among others. Carl VandenBerghe was the general contractor.

The theatre building also included retail and office space. The first tenants were the Dale and Nina Martin Insurance Agency and the optical offices of Dr. H. A. Miller.

The Avon Theatre closed in the early 1950s, and the Hills became the only movie house in town. In the early 1970s, multi-screen venues began popping up in the surrounding area. The Hampton Theatre opened with three screens in 1971 in a strip shopping center at Rochester and Hamlin Roads; the Winchester Theatre opened in the Winchester Mall at Avon and Rochester Roads; and the Northcrest Cinema (which notoriously switched from Hollywood fare to X-rated films a few years after its debut in 1973) opened in a shopping strip at Tienken and Rochester. Not long after, the community granted its first cable television franchise, and the pressure on the single-screen Hills Theatre became enormous. Bowing to the economic realities, the Hills went dark in 1984 and the building was remodeled as the Main Street Plaza, housing a group of boutique businesses and professional offices.

Although the marquee and box office are long gone, the box office "coming attraction" showcases still exist on the front of the building, flanking the entrance to the Main Street Plaza. The Hills Theatre building celebrates its 68th birthday this year.

Good news! The Rochester Avon Historical Society has selected the Hills Theatre building as one of its Cat's Meow buildings for 2009, and copies will be available in December. The popular Cat's Meow series includes a number of historic buildings from the greater Rochester community. Cat's Meow collectible figures are available at Holland’s Florist, the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm, Dillman & Upton, Framer’s Workshop and Lytle’s Pharmacy, or by visiting the Rochester Avon Historical Society web site. If you remember the Hills Theatre fondly, or know someone who does, a Cat's Meow figure of the building will make a great holiday gift!

Do you have memories of the Hills Theatre? Post a comment!

This 1961 view of the Hills is from the collection of Marjorie and the late Walter Dernier.

Health Care in Rochester - 1960s Style!

2009-11-11T07:00:00.002-05:00

The recent debate about health care reform led me to think back to the way such things were handled when I was growing up in Rochester during the 1960s. First of all, Howard McGregor's cattle were grazing where Crittenton Hospital now stands, so before the fall of 1967 Rochester residents had to travel to Pontiac when they needed hospital care. Ambulance transportation was provided by the two funeral homes; in the mid-sixties the town got a regular ambulance company and Rochesterites could then call upon Frank St. Onge to haul their bones to Pontiac in one of his orange station wagons.

Needless to say, hospital visits were a rarity; most problems, even urgent ones, were handled by the family physician. When I was a kid, it seemed as though Doctors Kresge, Geist, Dayton and Siffring were taking care of most of the town, dealing with all of their patients' needs from cradle to grave.

Health insurance – if a family even had it – only covered the major expenses, like hospitalization. Visits to the doctor's office were an out-of-pocket expense, so we didn't go to the doctor for every ache, pain, sniffle or sneeze. Our health insurance for those kinds of ailments was the local pharmacy – Morley's, Hunter's or Cunningham's, depending upon personal preference – and the family medicine cabinet. (By the way, if you have any medicine bottles with these pharmacy labels in your cabinet, it's really time to clean it out.)

At the center of our medicine cabinet were two bottles that contained the cures for ninety percent of our medical problems: aspirin and Pepto-Bismol. Skin wounds got painted with Mercurochrome (it'll only sting for a minute). Other skin ailments, including rashes, scrapes and burns were treated with Mom's all-purpose tube of A+D ointment. Bug bites were covered with good old calomine lotion. Congestion due to colds called for Vicks VapoRub to be slathered on the chest. Sore throat? Pop a Parke-Davis throat lozenge (I wish I still had some of those – they were great). And last, but not least, all orthopedic problems from a strained muscle to a broken limb could be handled with an Ace bandage.

If a fever was suspected, Mom took our temperature with a glass tube mercury thermometer, and we didn't worry about it. Today, if you break one of those things the men in the haz-mat suits have to come in and decontaminate your building. It's amazing that we lived through childhood, isn't it?

Main Street Stories: First National Bank Building

2009-10-18T10:56:00.007-04:00

The building at 339 S. Main Street has been occupied by the same type of business for its entire history thus far, and is one of only a handful in the downtown district that may claim the distinction. In 1924, directors of the First National Bank of Rochester, which was then located at 338 S. Main (in the Opera House block now occupied by Lytle Pharmacy), decided that the bank needed larger quarters and purchased property across the street on the southwest corner of Fourth and Main.

The Bond-Hubbard Company of Chicago designed and built the new bank block, which included office, retail and apartment spaces in addition to the bank quarters. Dillman and Upton supplied the building materials, including brick, hollow tile, cement, plaster and lumber for the $100,000 project.

The new bank opened its doors to the public on February 14, 1925. A few years later, during the banking crisis of the Great Depression, First National Bank of Rochester was liquidated and re-organized as the Rochester National Bank. When the bank re-opened, under the leadership of Milton H. Haselswerdt, community members showed their confidence by opening more than 400 new accounts. Haselswerdt was commended for restructuring the old bank without any harm to depositors.

In May 1955, Rochester National Bank merged with National Bank of Detroit, so the name on the front of the building changed, but not its purpose. National Bank of Detroit then became known as NBD Bank after its merger with First National Bank of Chicago in 1995. Four years later, another merger changed the name of the institution to Bank One, and in 2006, Bank One became part of J.P. Morgan Chase, the current occupant of the building.

The First National Bank Building will celebrate its 85th birthday this coming February.

This ca. 1961 photo shows the building wearing the National Bank of Detroit name.

Subdivision Stories: Christian Hills

2009-11-06T07:00:00.001-05:00

The Christian Hills No.1 subdivision was platted on the north half of Section 20 of Avon Township in the spring of 1955. It was laid out on land owned by the Anchor Realty Corporation, whose president was Alfred G. Wilson. Wilson and his wife, Matilda (the former Mrs. John Dodge) owned Meadow Brook Stock Farm (which eventually became Oakland University) and the Christian Hills property was part of their extensive real estate holdings in the area. Wilson's Anchor Realty sold 265 acres between Crooks and Adams for development by Ranch Homes, Inc., of Birmingham, a company operated by three brothers named Alfred J., Thomas H. and Harry Macksey.

Ranch Homes opened Christian Hills No.1 to the public on April 15, 1955, by making four model homes available for inspection. Prices in the new subdivision ranged from $16,900 to $29,900 for the homes, depending upon the model selected from more than twenty options, plus an additional $2,800 to $5,000 for the lots, depending upon location.

Immediately after the opening of Christian Hills No.1, additional property acquired from Anchor Realty was platted as Christian Hills No.2. In August of 1955, property on the east side of Crooks Road was platted as Christian Hills No.3. Today, there are a total of 394 homes in the the three Christian Hills subdivisions.

The name of the subdivision has its roots in the earliest pioneer history of Avon Township. In 1822, only six years after the first non-native settlement in Oakland County was made by James Graham and his family, a pioneer settler named Smith Weeks purchased eighty acres of land in Section 20 and another 320 acres in Sections 19 and 29 of what would become the Township of Avon. An itinerant minister thought to have been the first Methodist clergyman in Oakland County, Weeks apparently had a very compelling personality and was known as an ardent preacher. Early settlers called his land “Christian Hills,” it is believed, in homage to the Reverend Weeks' dynamic pursuit of his vocation, and the name persisted through the years. A rural school located in the area, at Adams and Butler roads, was also named Christian Hills. Technically speaking, the land on which the Christian Hills subdivision stands today is slightly to the north and east of the property once owned by Smith Weeks, so the developers were exercising a small bit of license in adopting the historic name for their development.

Smith Weeks also served as a pathmaster of Avon Township, probate judge of Oakland County and as the first chaplain of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Michigan. He died in 1829 at the age of 69, but the name Christian Hills remains in use to this day, 180 years after his death.

This graphic is from a newspaper advertisement for Christian Hills that ran in the Rochester Clarion in the spring of 1955. I added color to the company logo to make it more readable.

Stony Creek - A Historic Community

2009-11-03T07:00:00.001-05:00

Everyone is invited to the next meeting of the Rochester Avon Historical Society on Thursday, November 5 at 7:00 p.m., when Patrick McKay, director of the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm, will present "Stony Creek - A Historic Community."

Stony Creek village was first settled by Lemuel Taylor and his family in 1823 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Come to hear stories of the founding of the community and the people who helped to establish it, and learn about the ongoing efforts to preserve it. The program is free and open to the public and will be held in the auditorium of the Rochester Hills Public Library, 500 Olde Towne Road.

This Month in Rochester History

2009-11-01T07:00:00.004-05:00

During the month of November, several anniversaries occur in connection to Rochester's South Hill Bridge. Imagine the approach to downtown Rochester from top of South Hill if the bridge did not exist, and you will have a mental picture of the way things were in 1927, before the bridge was built. Vehicular traffic (other than streetcars, which used a wooden trestle to enter the village) had to descend the hill and cross the Clinton River and the Grand Trunk railroad tracks. The road was often impassable in bad weather, and climbing the hill to leave Rochester was often more than the automobiles of the day could handle.

When the state of Michigan announced its plan to built a concrete viaduct to carry traffic from South Hill to the foot of Main Street, there was great rejoicing in Rochester. The opening of the 810-foot span on November 9, 1927, was greeted with grand festivities, including a parade, entertainment, prize drawings, and a dedication ceremony attended by state and local dignitaries. The hoopla was well justified, as the South Hill Bridge was the longest concrete bridge in Michigan at the time of its dedication. Click here to view newsreel footage of the event from the Detroit News archive at Wayne State University (best viewed over a cable or DSL connection; not recommended if you are using dial-up access to the Internet).

The bridge featured a two-lane, 28-foot roadway with a pedestrian walk. During the post-war population boom in Rochester and Avon, the traffic load on the bridge exceeded its capacity and it was expanded by adding two more traffic lanes on the east side of the structure. The new, four-lane bridge opened to traffic in November of 1958.

On November 1, 1983, part of the southbound side of the bridge deck cracked and collapsed after a support strap failed. The bridge was closed completely for a week while emergency repairs were made, and then was under construction for months to replace the aging deck and supports. The repaired span was reopened with a gala celebration reminiscent of the first "Bridge Day" in 1927, including a parade and remarks by Gov. James Blanchard.

The South Hill Bridge is 82 years old this month.

This postcard view, from the collection of Rod and Susan Wilson, shows the bridge as it appeared when it opened in 1927, looking southward from the foot of Main Street.

Main Street Stories: The Curtis Building

2009-10-28T07:00:00.008-04:00

The building at 307 S. Main was built in 1907 by Lewis W. Curtis (1879-1976). 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 on Main Street which housed his offices on the second floor and provided retail space on the first floor.

Several different businesses have occupied the ground floor of the Curtis building. It served as the first home of the A & P grocery store after the chain located in Rochester in 1923. In 1926, Alvah N. Dean opened a feed store there, and a feed business would occupy 307 S. Main for over half a century thereafter. Dean asked one of his employees, Al Michalka, to manage the feed store in 1927, and Michalka added a line of pet supplies to the store on his own. By 1933, the Dean feed store and the hatchery business that he also operated were suffering from the effects of the Great Depression; manager Michalka was no longer being paid and his only income was that which he earned from his pet supplies side line. When Dean's business failed completely in the summer of 1933, Al Michalka decided to take over for himself. Al's son, Robert Michalka, shared this story with me:

...he met with the owner of the building, Dr. Lewis Curtis, and offered to rent the building at a reduced rent. Dr. Curtis said, "how do you think that you can make it when Dean couldn't?". My Dad said that he could and Dr. Curtis agreed to rent him the building with my Dad setting his own rent and raising it himself as conditions improved, which he did until he bought the building in 1960. The counter had been removed and my Dad went to see Mr. Dean and told him that he needed the counter as he was going in to business for himself. Dean said that he couldn't as he needed it. My Dad told him that he had not been paid for two months and that Dean was going to give him the counter and have one of his men and a truck deliver it. He then opened his jacket to reveal a gun. Mr. Dean provided the man and a truck. ... Those were different days.

Main Feed and Seed, the name by which Al Michalka's business was known, operated at 307 S. Main until March 1982, and is fondly remembered by several generations of Rochester residents. Even though Dr. Curtis may have questioned whether Michalka could make a success of the store, Michalka himself apparently had no such reservations. For the 1935 Double Jubilee festival held in downtown Rochester to celebrate the centennial of Avon Township, a commemorative program was printed which included an ad for Main Feed and Seed. That advertisement carried the tag line "we'll be here when your kids grow up." Al Michalka kept that promise. Main Feed and Seed was still there when I grew up, and my own father hadn't even been born yet when that Double Jubilee ad was printed!

Since Main Feed and Seed passed from the scene, the Curtis building has been occupied by a coffee house and several boutique businesses. The ground floor is currently occupied by the Dragonfly Boutique. The Curtis building celebrates its 102nd birthday this year.

Robert Michalka took this photo of 307 S. Main in June 1968 and kindly provided it for this post. The man shown in front of the store is Ernest "Red" Ennis, who worked for Sutton's Market and later, for Main Feed and Seed.

Rochester's Famous Scientist

2009-10-23T13:13:00.016-04:00

On 16th Street in Washington, D.C., stands a house that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This building is not listed on the National Register for its age or architectural significance, but for its connection to a man born in Rochester, Michigan who was an important historical figure in the field of science. The house on 16th Street is listed because it once served as the residence of Robert Simpson Woodward (1849-1924), noted American physicist and geologist.

Woodward was born in Rochester on July 21, 1849, the third of five children of pioneer farmer Lysander Woodward and his wife Peninah Simpson. Although Lysander Woodward was a progressive farmer who applied scientific agricultural principles to the operation of his farm and served as president of the Oakland County Agricultural Society in order to urge others to do the same, he nonetheless did not believe that university education had any real merit and had to be convinced to allow his son to attend the University of Michigan after he completed his basic education in Rochester.

Robert S. Woodward was graduated from the University of Michigan in 1872 with an engineering degree. He worked on the United States Lake Survey and also served as an assistant astronomer with the United States Transit of Venus Commission. He then moved on to the U.S. Geological Survey, where he was chief geographer in charge of the Division of Mathematics, and there conducted research and published numerous scientific papers.

In 1893, Woodward became Professor of Mechanics and Mathematical Physics at Columbia University. He remained at Columbia for a dozen years and then accepted the position of president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, at which time he made his home in the District of Columbia. He retired from the Carnegie Institution in 1921, three years before his death.

Robert S. Woodward also served as associate editor of the journal Science - still published today - from 1889 to 1924. He was regarded as a leading authority in his field, and the list of his publications, honors and awards goes on for pages. He died in Washington D.C. on June 29, 1924 at the age of 74, from lingering ailments after a bout of influenza.

A lengthy professional biography of Robert Simpson Woodward, prepared in 1937 for the National Academy of Sciences is available online here. A photo and information about his residence in Washington, D.C., listed on the National Register, is available here.

Vanished Rochester: Talley Motor Sales

2009-10-10T09:17:00.007-04:00

In March of 1946, the Rochester Era announced that construction of an ultra-modern automobile dealership had begun on North Main at the corner of Drace. Talley Motor Sales had been founded in Rochester six months earlier, quartered temporarily at 115 East Third Street, in a building that had been used for storage by McAleer Manufacturing. President and majority owner in the firm was Charles W. Talley, who had previously worked for Community Motors and National Twist Drill. Other principals were Glenn Warren, vice-president; George Hillman, vice-president; and J. William Davis, secretary-treasurer.

Talley's success as the area's Chrysler-Plymouth agency led to the need for a new building. The garage and showroom at 1001 North Main was 90 feet wide and 165 feet long. The five-car showroom was of Art Deco design similar in lines to the D&C building at Fourth and Main, which was built during the same era. The construction cost of the new facility was estimated at $35,000.

The building served as an automobile dealership for its entire useful life. The firm later became known as Talley-Warren Motor Sales; in 1957, Ray Rammler and Les Dallas bought the company and added the Dodge line to the showroom floor. In the 1960s and 1970s, the company was known as Town and Country Chrysler-Plymouth, and after that Meadowbrook Dodge. After Meadowbrook Dodge removed to the corner of Auburn and Rochester roads about 1999, the Talley Motors building was demolished to make way for the Flagstar Bank branch office which currently occupies the site.

Photo: This photo of the Talley Motor Sales building at 1001 North Main was provided by Rod and Susan Wilson.

Listening For the Calliope

2009-10-14T07:00:00.003-04:00

When I was a youngster growing up in 1960s Rochester, Trick-Or-Treat was the main event of the autumn season. As stores broke out the Halloween displays, our minds mulled over costume ideas and we kids bugged our parents to buy us just the right mask for the event. Kresge's had a seemingly endless selection of the hard plastic masks held in place with a skinny elastic band that always broke before the Halloween night festivities could end.

A week before Halloween night, there was a special event in town that served to build our anticipation of things to come. The Monday prior to Halloween was Kiwanis Flare Night. The Rochester Kiwanis Club and the fire department came through the streets of town selling packages of road flares to be used to illuminate the sidewalks on Halloween night. Some years, they used a calliope mounted on one of the trucks to announce their presence in the neighborhood for the flare sale. Our ears strained to hear that music pipe up and we would immediately announce to Dad that "they're coming down our street!".

On Halloween night, Trick-Or-Treat was officially begun when the fire siren blew at 7:00 p.m. A few minutes before the appointed time, every father in the neighborhood was sitting on his front porch or stoop with a bundle of road flares in hand, patiently waiting for the siren to blow. Everyone was very obedient, and nobody ever lit their flares until the siren was sounded. Promptly at 7:00, we heard the long-awaited wail, and flares simultaneously lit the sidewalks up and down the street. The whole neighborhood was soon eerily alight with a pinkish-orange cloud of sulphur dioxide smoke, and kids raced out their front doors with plastic jack-o-lanterns or pillow cases at the ready to begin collecting their loot. Trick-Or-Treat was on!

Subdivision Stories: W.C. Chapman Addition

2009-10-05T18:30:00.004-04:00

One of Rochester's early real estate developers was William Clark Chapman (1866-1946), who with his older brother, Charles Sherwin Chapman (1864-1912), brought the Western Knitting Mills to Rochester in 1891. Both men made their home in Rochester after locating the WKM here, and both built fine residences in the village. In March 1899, William C. Chapman platted and sold land lying north of Fifth Street (now University Drive) near Paint Creek as the W.C. Chapman Addition. This plat consisted of six lots facing Fifth Street and seven pairs of lots lying to the immediate north of Fifth Street along a side street to be named Ludlow. This street was named in honor of the Vermont birthplace of William C. Chapman's wife, Ada Josephine Barney Chapman. William Chapman himself was born in Cavendish, Vermont, the town neighboring Ludlow. (The Chapman family had many friends and relatives in Ludlow, Vermont, and visited there often. At their deaths, both Chapman brothers were interred in a Ludlow cemetery near their parents' graves.)

At the time that the W.C. Chapman Addition was laid out and sold, there was great economic potential in developing land on the north side of the village. The Detroit Sugar Company was in the process of building a huge beet sugar processing plant on what is known today as Woodward Street, and an interurban streetcar line was laying track toward Rochester at the same time. Chapman's 1946 obituary commented that, having experienced a housing shortage for workers when he and his brother brought the Western Knitting Mills to town in 1891, he decided to invest in real estate and housing development when the Detroit Sugar Company faced a similar situation nearly a decade later.

Ludlow Avenue was extended to the north by two later plats of the land adjoining the W.C. Chapman Addition, and eventually ran all the way to Paint Creek, where it was connected to Woodward Street.

This Month in Rochester History

2009-10-01T07:00:00.004-04:00

This month we look back at a catastrophic fire on Main Street and a Rochester tradition that was born from it. On October 20, 1926, the newly-built Phillips & Jerome Ford showroom and service garage at 215 S. Main Street caught fire. An acetylene torch being used at the back of the garage ignited gasoline in a tractor tank and the resulting fire spread quickly, feeding on the various combustibles normally found in garages. An alarm was turned in, but the village fire siren failed to sound, and the members of the volunteer fire department responded only as word of mouth alerted them to the situation. The Pontiac Fire Department was also called to assist, but by the time firefighting resources could be assembled at the scene, there was little to do but contain the blaze and prevent it from spreading to neighboring buildings. Employees of the dealership saved a few automobiles by pushing them out to the street through the showroom windows, but in the end, the building and most of its contents were a total loss.

Local legend has it that the fire siren failed to sound because a bird had built a nest in it. A week after the Phillips & Jerome fire, the Rochester Village Council ordered that the fire siren be sounded weekly at noon to insure that it was in working order. That order was soon amended to make the siren test a daily event at noon, and that tradition has continued for the past eighty-three years, and counting.

Phillips & Jerome rebuilt their showroom and garage at the same location, and occupied the building at 215 S. Main until the mid-1960s. The fire department has installed more sophisticated communication equipment as the years have passed, but we still hear the noon whistle every weekday to remind us of that long-ago fire.

Selfridge Airplane Crashes in Avon Township

2009-09-27T15:15:00.006-04:00

On a Thursday afternoon in March 1940, residents of Avon Township and the village of Rochester were looking up to watch two pursuit aircraft from Selfridge Field practicing dog-fighting maneuvers in the skies over town. The pilots of the two airplanes were assigned to the 39th Pursuit Squadron based at Selfridge, and they had been performing pursuit tactics in the area all afternoon when, at about 4:30 p.m., the P-35 airplane piloted by 2nd Lieutenant Wilmer W. Munzenmayer went into a stall. Having lost control of the craft, Lt. Munzenmayer bailed out, but plummeted to the ground when his parachute failed to open. His P-35 exploded upon impact and was destroyed by fire. The accident occurred over the Ferry-Morse Seed Farm in the area of Rochester & Auburn roads, and the wreckage was scattered over the entire seed farm area, the largest intact piece being the landing gear. Lt. Munzenmayer, age 23, was killed in the mishap and his body was removed to Selfridge Field by military ambulance. His remains were returned to his home in Kent, Ohio, for burial.

If you are interested in the history of Selfridge Field and the base's impact upon the history of southeastern Michigan, you are invited to attend the regular meeting of the Rochester Avon Historical Society on Thursday, October 1 at 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium of the Rochester Hills Public Library. Deborah Larsen, co-author of the book Images of Aviation: Selfridge Field, will present the program on the history of Selfridge, illustrated with photographs and newsreel footage of the historic airfield. The program is free and open to the public. Please join us.

Subdivision Stories: Woodward Addition

2009-09-24T19:00:00.006-04:00

The second-oldest addition to the original plat of Rochester is the Woodward Addition, platted on April 20, 1874 on part of the farm of Lysander and Peninah Simpson Woodward. Lysander Woodward was born in Connecticut in 1817, the same year in which the village of Rochester was first settled, and arrived in Rochester with his wife in 1843. He was a prosperous farmer and one of the most influential men in Oakland County. He served variously as Avon Township supervisor, justice of the peace, state representative, Oakland County treasurer, and president of the Detroit & Bay City Railroad. He was chiefly responsible for bringing the first railroad line to Rochester. Lysander Street in the Woodward Addition is named for him.

This map of the Woodward Addition from 1896 shows the streets as they were laid out in the official plat that was approved in 1874, but this is not how the subdivision was eventually built out. High Street does not go through from Romeo Road to Terry Street, as shown on the map; it dead ends at the top of the bluff overlooking Lysander Street. Likewise, Short Street, living up to its name, runs only from Romeo to Lysander and not beyond. After the original plat was made, a large 10-acre plot of land in the middle of the subdivision was sold to August Thoel, and was not replatted until 1915, when the Avondale Park subdivision plat was created to the north of the Woodward Addition. The new plat, developed by Thoel along with Isaac Terry and J.B. Mahaffy, created the street configuration that we know today.

An Unsung Hero

2009-09-18T12:14:00.007-04:00

During World War II, industries across the United States converted to war work, and the factories of Rochester, Michigan were included in their number. National Twist Drill and McAleer Manufacturing were two of the larger companies in the area holding critical defense contracts. The civilian men and women employed in these factories were called “soldiers without guns,” and their collective workplaces were dubbed the “arsenal of democracy” because the products that they built were crucial to the overall war effort.

Often overlooked is the fact that a large number of civilian defense workers also gave their lives for that war effort. A March, 1944 article in Popular Mechanics magazine, entitled “More Deadly Than War,” reported National Safety Council statistics on industrial casualties for the first sixteen months of American involvement in World War II. The numbers were startling: 64,500 Americans were killed on the home front in industrial accidents, the count actually outstripping the number of U.S. military deaths during the same time period. (Although the total number of Americans working in home front industries was far greater than the total number serving in uniform, the civilian death count is still shocking.)

At McAleer Manufacturing in Rochester, Michigan (the site of today's Rochester Mills Beer Company), dangerous but necessary war work was underway. McAleer produced military flares and the M46 Photoflash bomb, and industrial accidents involving the mixing of explosive metals in its bunkers on the east side of town resulted in injury and death for several McAleer workers.

One of those workers was Virginia Ann MacLeod. Virginia was born on November 17, 1920, one of four children of Alexander and Edna Parmenter MacLeod, residents of Willard Street in Avon Township (now Rochester Hills). She attended Rochester High School and was graduated with the class of 1938. A member of the National Honor Society, Virginia was labeled by her classmates as “honest, upright and dependable.”

After McAleer Manufacturing opened its doors in Rochester in 1941, Virginia got a job there. She and two other workers were seriously injured in an explosion at one of the bunkers on December 19, 1942. Virginia suffered second- and third-degree burns and died from her injuries at Pontiac General Hospital on December 24, 1942. She was 22 years old.

Virginia's brother, Kenneth W. MacLeod, was serving with the United States Army at the time of her death. If you visit the World War II Honor Roll located at the east end of the Rochester Municipal Building, you will find Kenneth MacLeod's name listed there. But don't forget his sister, Virginia, who was also a patriot and gave her life in the service of her country, even though she didn't wear a uniform.

Photo: This portrait of Virginia Ann MacLeod is her senior class picture from the 1938 RHS yearbook, courtesy of Rod and Susan Wilson.