Bygone Business: Selma's Smart Shoppe

Fifty years ago, the "go-to" place for exclusive ladies' fashions was Selma's Smart Shoppe, located in the Morse  Block at 323 S. Main. Selma's opened in the fall of 1956, after Earl and Selma Atkinson, formerly of Pontiac, purchased Shueller's store from Robert Shueller, the son of store founder and long-time Rochester merchant Louis S. Shueller.  Earl Atkinson was an employee of the Borden Dairy, and took a leave of absence from his job to help his wife launch the new business that would bear her name.  Selma's was a retail mainstay in Rochester for almost three decades; it closed in the early 1970s, and the Mole Hole gift shop succeeded Selma's at the 323 S. Main location in 1973.

Bygone Business: Yates Machine Shop

A business that anchored the foot of Main Street, Rochester for more than three decades was the Yates Machine Shop. The advertisement shown here ran in the Rochester Era on June 4, 1920 announcing that A. W. Yates had purchased the former Jackson Foundry on South Main Street and planned to expand the business. The Jackson Foundry had been operated by John F. and Samuel B. Jackson and originated with the brothers' father, W.H. Jackson, who had come to Rochester in 1877 and purchased the old Jennings Foundry. The Jennings Foundry, in turn, had been one of Rochester's pioneer industries.

The original foundry building had burned in 1884 while being operated by the Jacksons, and had been immediately rebuilt. It was substantially rebuilt yet again by A. W. Yates in the 1920s and was expanded more than once over the decades of Yates ownership.  Yates Machine Shop was a defense contractor during World War II and won the coveted Army-Navy E Award for excellence in production of war equipment.  The business closed in the late 1950s.

After the machine shop closed, several small industrial concerns occupied the former Yates building at 115 S. Main.  In 1970, the building was remodeled and redeveloped as the Gateway Center, and now houses a mixture of retailers, restaurants and professional offices.

Appreciating Rochester and Rochester Hills

From time to time it is a good idea to stop, take a breath, and appreciate the beauty of our surroundings.  Those of us who live in the greater Rochester area are richly blessed; our natural environment is lush and welcoming.  I recently ran across a poem published in the Rochester Clarion on February 23, 1934, in which a former Rochester resident named David Reid took the time to admire what he saw around him.  I'll let the poem speak for itself:

ROCHESTER HILLS

by David Reid

I've seen the Blue Ridge Mountains

And the Rockies in the west

But when compared for beauty

The Rochester Hills are best.

We seldom if ever realize

And we sometimes have to roam

Before we can fully appreciate

The beauties we have at home.

I've stood on the bridge in summer

Where many hills are seen

And admired the beautiful scenery

When most everything was green.

I've seen their hills in winter

All covered with ice and snow

I stood in admiration

Till my face was all aglow.

I've watched the sun shining

Many times during the day

On these hills so brightly

That it drove all cares away.

I've seen the sun go down
Behind these hills at night

With colors so impressive

It sure was a beautiful sight.

To Rochester, Nature has been good

And as kind as it could be

It made these hills with beauty

So all that would, could see.

I don't have any further information about the poet, but he did publish several other pieces in the Rochester Clarion around the same time period.  Whoever he was, he clearly appreciated where he lived; 78 years later, his words still ring true.

This Month in Rochester History

Fifty years ago this month, Rochester area residents were talking about traffic problems. Sound familiar? In July 1962, the issue at hand was congestion in the area of the Tienken and Rochester Road intersection, caused during the afternoon shift change at National Twist Drill.  At the time, Twist Drill was the community's major employer, and the outflow of employee vehicles from its parking lots between 3:30 and 4:00 in the afternoon each weekday caused tremendous traffic backups in the area.

In response to the problem, local official petitioned the state highway department to install a traffic signal at the intersection of Tienken and Rochester, but the state's traffic study revealed that the intersection was only handling 11,855 vehicles in a 24-hour period, which was not enough traffic to qualify for a traffic light. The state suggested that Twist Drill rearrange its parking lots so that employees living north of town parked in the north lot, those living east parked in the east lot, and so forth. Twist Drill responded that 90 percent of its employees lived south of the plant, so such a scheme would have little, if any, effect in remediating the problem.  Instead, the company deployed plant protection personnel equipped with pylons to direct traffic around the plant during the afternoon shift change.

Main Street Stories: Simon Grube Cigar Factory

331 S. Main in 2008 (Photo by Eric Bothwell)

A recently published encyclopedia of Michigan history and culture entitled The Michigan Companion (Detroit: OmniGraphics, 2011). tells us that Detroit was once known for cigar manufacturing. In that narrative we find this information:

During the last half of the 19th century, Detroit became a center for the tobacco industry in the United States and by the 1890s was one of the largest centers of cigar manufacturing in as well. ... At its height [in the late nineteenth century], the cigar industry employed about 12,000 workers who produced 205 million cigars a year.

Not far from Detroit, the village of Rochester had its own cigar factory right here on Main Street. The small, one-story building at 331 S. Main was built by Simon Grube in the fall of 1891 to house his cigar factory and tobacconist business, as noted by the Rochester correspondent to the Utica Sentinel on October 10, 1891, when the paper told its readers: "'Sim' Grube broke ground today for his new brick cigar factory. The new building is to be situated on the west side of Main street, between Harrison's shoe shop and the Barger lot,  Mr. Grube having purchased the site from Ben Harrison."

331 S. Main in 1961 (Photo by the late Walter Dernier)

Although Grube operated his tobacco business in the building until 1920, it is his successor who is better known  and associated with that location.  Grube, who was born in Northampton County, Pennsylvania in 1845 and emigrated to Rochester along with a large number of other families from his native county, sold the business to Frank Butts, who continued in the cigar and tobacco business there for another two decades.  Butts was also a native of Northampton County, Pennsylvania.

After Frank Butts retired from business, the building which had served as a cigar factory and tobacco shop for the first half-century of its existence became the home of Avon Cleaners. In the 1960s and 1970s it was the home of Cam and Phyllis Soule's appliance store, and in recent years has housed a number of specialty shops including the Cose di Lusso wine shoppe and the Simply the Best $10 Boutique.

The Simon Grube cigar factory celebrates its 121st birthday this fall.

At Home in Rochester: Hiram L. Lintz/A.R. Dillman Residence

The large home now serving as an apartment house on the southeast corner of Second and Walnut streets has a historical association with several well-known names from Rochester history.  The house was built as a private home by Hiram L. Lintz in 1901, and the details of its construction were noted by the Rochester Era during the summer of that year. Lintz was a well-known farmer in Shelby Township before he came to Rochester in 1892 to join P. M. Woodworth in a furniture and undertaking business. The firm of Woodworth & Lintz was located in the store at 311 S. Main, where Haig's Jewelry is today.  P. M. Woodworth died in 1896, and Hiram Lintz continued the business in partnership with Woodworth's widow until 1899, when the two sold the business to Thomas C. Severance.

As an aside, it is interesting to note that the funeral portion of this business has survived to this day. It was originally established in 1882 by W. Harvey Greene, who sold it to P. M. Woodworth in 1886. Woodworth, in turn, took Hiram L. Lintz as a partner, and Woodworth & Lintz was sold to Thomas C. Severance in 1899.  Edward R. Metcalf bought the business from Severance in 1903 and sold it around 1911, to Vernor Spaulding.  Spaulding moved it to a location off Main Street and sold it to Alanson  C. Hobart. In 1950, Hobart sold it to Potere & Winkel, and not long after that William R. Potere became the sole proprietor.  In 1986, Potere sold to John Modetz, and today we know the business that was started by W. Harvey Greene in 1882 as Potere-Modetz Funeral Home.

Returning to the subject of the Lintz home on Walnut Street, it was sold to Rochester lumber dealer Arthur R. Dillman (of Dillman and Upton), who occupied it as his family home until about 1927, at which time the Dillmans built a new home on North Main. Silas B. Wattles bought the house from the Dillmans at that time and sold it to Elizabeth Butts Casey Case in 1939. In 1940, Case had the house partitioned into four apartments and operated it as an income property for a number of years, as she did with several other large houses in Rochester.

The Lintz house celebrates its 111th birthday this summer.

Main Street Stories: Amariah Trowbridge/Julian S. Peters House

Trowbridge/Peters house ca. 1904 (before addition)

Earlier in Rochester's history, their were numerous dwellings interspersed among the commercial buildings in Main Street's business district.  In 2012, only one of those houses remains standing, and that is the Amariah Trowbridge/Julian S. Peters house at 200 S. Main, occupied today by the Chomp Deli & Grille.

The exact date that Amariah Trowbridge built his house at the south end of Main Street is not known, and deeds for the property are somewhat murky, but we do know that the first year that Trowbridge appears on the tax rolls as owner of this property is 1864. Trowbridge was born in Steuben County, New York in 1830, and came to Oakland County with his parents. When the Civil War erupted, he enlisted in Company G, 22nd Michigan Infantry, and was later transferred to Company G, 29th Michigan Infantry.  He lived in Rochester from his return from the Civil War until his death in 1886, and was an employee of the Barnes Brothers Paper Mill during that entire time.

After Trowbridge died, one of his comrades in arms purchased a portion of the property - not including the house -  from his estate. Julian S. Peters,  who had served with Trowbridge in Company G, 22nd Michigan Infantry and later with Company G, 29th Michigan Infantry, bought the north half of the lot on which the house stood and conducted a carriage painting business there. The south half of the lot, on which the house stood (corner of Second Street) was originally sold to other parties, but in 1904, Julian Peters bought that as well.
On November 18, 1904, the Rochester Era carried this item about the house:

J.S. Peters is overhauling the old Trowbridge house. He will raise the roof three feet, drop the building and place a good cellar under it, making a neat tenement house of it.

Later, Peters also built a one-and-a-half story addition to the north side of the house.

Julian Peters served as Avon Township Clerk in 1874-75 and also served 21 years as Justice of the Peace in Rochester. Peters was proud that during his years as Justice of the Peace, not one of the thousands of cases he tried was ever reversed on appeal. After retiring from public service, he conducted a real estate and insurance business. He owned the property at 200 S. Main St. until his death in 1931, when it was sold by his heirs.

In 1945, Rochester automobile dealer C. Lawrence Jerome bought the property and converted the house to office space for the Jerome Insurance Agency. That business was known as the Jerome-Hill Insurance agency in the 1950s, and later as the Hudson G. Hill Agency until the late 1970s. The house has also been occupied, at various times, by Teague Finance, GAC Finance, H&R Block, and Rochester Accounting and Tax Service. The Chomp Deli & Grille opened there in May 2010, following the Beyond Juice restaurant at the location.

The Trowbridge/Peters house is significant as the only remaining example of a mid-19th century dwelling remaining in the business district of Main Street. It serves to remind us what the village's Main Street looked like in those days.

Main Street Stories: Leslie L. Whims Building

(Marjorie and the late Walter Dernier Collection, ca.1961)

Do you know where the bowling alley was on Main Street in downtown Rochester? If you were in town between 1926 and the early 1970s, you may have visited Rochester Lanes at 430-432 S. Main.  The building at 430 S. Main was constructed in 1926 for Rochester businessman Leslie L. Whims, and while the street level of the structure housed an auto garage and showroom, it was the basement that drew the attention of the town as the building neared completion.  The Rochester Clarion told its readers on November 5, 1926:

After this week Rochester can well boast of having one of the finest bowling alleys to be found in the state, the entire basement of the new Whims block, from the main street to alley, a depth of 150 feet, to house four alleys all of the most modern equipment and furnished in keeping with the fine place it now gives promise of being.

(Rod and Susan Wilson Collection, 1960)

Rochester Motor Sales, operated by George Ross, occupied the main floor of Whims building for many years, along with Leslie Whims' insurance office (Whims Insurance, founded in 1917, is still a family business and is now our community's oldest insurance agency). The main action, however, must have been in the basement, because in 1945, Whims added a building next door to the north and doubled the size of his bowling alley from four to eight lanes. War time shortages slowed progress on the building, but the Rochester Era shared the good news of the expanded bowling alley's completion with the town on September 5, 1946:

After bucking a year of shortages of materials and all the other things which go to make a post-war building project a real headache, the new alleys are completed in an excellent manner and the facilities are double the size of the old alleys, there being eight Brunswick Lanes with the maples standing at the other end inviting the hundreds of bowling enthusiasts.

Did you learn to bowl at Rochester Lanes? Did you set pins there?  Tell us in the comments.

Vanished Rochester: The John H. Hawken Residence

John H. Hawken House, 131 E. Fourth St., in 1977

John H. Hawken House, 131 E. Fourth St., in 1897

This large Victorian home stood on the northwest corner of Fourth and East streets, where a municipal parking lot is located today.  It was built in 1895 by John H. Hawken II, as his family residence.  According to the pamphlet Beautiful Rochester, which was published in 1897 and carried an item about Mr. Hawken along with a photograph of his home, Hawken was born in Ontario in 1871. He came to Rochester with his father's family in 1880 and went to work in the woolen mill, rising quickly to the position of assistant superintendent of the Western Knitting Mills after that company moved to Rochester from Detroit.  Beautiful Rochester described John H. Hawken as "one of the rising young men of the village," and that certainly appears to have been an accurate assessment.  Hawken was only 24 years old when he built this house, which he shared with his widowed mother and siblings until 1900, when he married Catherine "Kittie" Cullen. The couple had one child, William Cullen Hawken, who later became a physician in Detroit.  Tragically, John H. Hawken did not live to see his only son; he died of tuberculosis in April 1902 at the age of 31, a few months before the birth of his child.  According to his death certificate, Hawken was superintendent of the Western Knitting Mills at the time of his demise.

Following the death of John Hawken, the house on East Fourth Street was purchased by William O. Brewster;  in the 1930s, Elizabeth Butts Casey (later Case) bought it and converted it to an apartment house. The Hawken house served as an apartment building to the end of its days, which came in late 1977, when it was razed to make way for a municipal parking lot and thus passed into the pages of Vanished Rochester.

This Month in Rochester History

In July 1962, Rochester was observing another fascinating construction project that was underway downtown, and like the Main Street Makeover that we've been watching recently, this one also involved a lot of digging. Ground was broken on June 6, 1962 for a 200-foot tunnel that would connect the National Bank of Detroit building at the corner of Fourth & Main (now Chase Bank) to a brand-new drive-in bank facility that was going up on the east side of Walnut near Fourth.   A tube seven feet in diameter was buried in an excavated trench that ran beneath the West Alley to the site of the new building, located just to the north of the former Methodist church (now Masonic Temple). The underground passageway allowed bank employees to move easily between the two structures without going outside. The new drive-in bank was designed by architect Clarence E. Noetzel (1924-1994) and built by P.H. Williams & Son, contractors. It opened for service in October 1962.

More Musings on the D & C Building Ghost

During a recent historical walking tour conducted by the Rochester Avon Historical Society, the subject of the D & C building's ghost was mentioned.  Over the years, many people have reported encountering evidence of a ghost in the building -  now occupied by the Rojo Mexican Bistro -  and have speculated about the identity of the restless spirit or how it might be connected to the history of the beloved dime store. As the property's history was discussed during the tour, it occurred to me that most of the speculation about the ghost has centered around the D & C building - which was constructed in 1940. But what if the ghost predates the D & C and is connected to an earlier event that took place at the corner of Fourth and Main?

The Lambertson block stood on the location where the D &C (now Rojo) building is today.  Built in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it housed George C. Dennis's drug store for nearly three decades, and Dennis, a bachelor who lived alone, occupied the rooms above the business, as was common for merchants in those days.  In 1911, with his business failing and about to be seized by his creditors, George C. Dennis committed suicide by swallowing poison.  The shocking news was carried in newspapers around the state, and the Flint Journal reported the sad story on August 25, 1911:

Facing financial ruin after a lifetime of toil proved too much for George C. Dennis, Rochester's pioneer business man, and rather than confront the creditors who were to meet yesterday morning to take over his drug business, he ended his life in the rooms over the store where for 25 years he had lived alone.

Mr. Dennis swallowed a large amount of opium and corrosive sublimate and slashed his left wrist repeatedly with a razor.

The owner of the store building heard moaning in the druggist's apartments when he opened his place of business. On investigation he found Mr. Dennis unconscious but writhing on the floor of his room. Physicians were called, but the man died at 9:30.

The Journal's reporter went on to speculate that times had passed George Dennis by, and that he had become marginalized as a business man:

For many years the drug business was profitable, but of late the old methods employed by Mr. Dennis proved too slow. Little by little, business dropped off until only a few of the older residents and close friends patronized the quiet old man. He became more deeply involved financially each year, and finally yesterday was set for a meeting of the creditors to take over the stock and fixtures in an effort to satisfy their claims. Mr. Dennis had provised to attend the meeting, but evidently during the night decided he could not face the ordeal.

Perhaps it is the tortured spirit of the late Rochester druggist that still haunts the corner of Fourth and Main, where he worked for so many years and tragically died. Is George C. Dennis the D & C ghost?

This portrait of George C. Dennis is from an 1907 promotional booklet entitled Rochester: A Sketch of One of the Best Towns on the Map.

At Home in Rochester: Louis Stanley Shueller Residence

This beautiful Tudor revival home on the corner of University Drive and Castell was built in 1926 for Rochester merchant Louis S. Shueller and his wife, Laura Stadelman Shueller. The Shuellers purchased the lot in the Oakdale subdivision from Robert H. and Mary Wilson in 1921, but did not build on the property until 1926. The Rochester Clarion announced in July 1926 that the Shuellers were preparing to build a residence on their lot, and on November 19, 1926,  told its readers that "L.S. Shueller and family will move into their beautiful new house on West Fifth street the coming week, vacating the G. S. Axford house on South Walnut street." Then, on December 10, the Clarion remarked: "L. S. Shueller and family on Wednesday moved into their new home on West Fifth st."

Louis Shueller had come to Rochester in 1910 when, in partnership with a man named Batdorff, he had started the Batdorff & Shueller dry goods store in the Morse Block on Main Street. Not long after, Shueller became the sole proprietor and the business name was changed to Shueller's. In 1926, the same year in which he built this house as his personal residence, Shueller also bought the Morse Block building and remodeled it. Shueller's store closed in 1956 after 46 years in the same location on Main Street.

Louis Stanley Shueller was born April 20, 1877 in Clinton County, Michigan, the son of German immigrants Michael Shueller and Rosalia George. He died in Detroit, Michigan on November 5, 1953. He married Laura R. Stadelman on September 5, 1910 in Monroe County, Michigan.
 

Bygone Business: E. R. Metcalf Ford Agency

If you were in the market for a new automobile in Rochester in 1910, you could order one from the local Ford agent, Edward R. Metcalf, who was located in the building at 311 S. Main St. Metcalf operated a furniture and undertaking parlor in the store, which he had purchased from Mrs. Thomas C. Severance in 1903. Customers interested in the newfangled horseless carriage could call upon Mr. Metcalf at his store and arrange a demonstration of a new Ford vehicle.

Metcalf was Rochester's Ford dealer until 1911, when he sold his business and moved to California.  The advertisement shown here ran in the local newspapers in April, 1910.

At Home in Rochester: Edward S. Barnes Residence

Edward S. Barnes built this house at the corner of Second and Pine streets as his personal residence in 1906.  Oral history says that this house, along with the Clinton G. Griffey house on University Drive and the Burton McCafferty house on Fourth Street, were all constructed with brick reclaimed from the demolition of the Detroit Sugar Company mill. The mill was dismantled in the spring and summer of 1906, and brick were salvaged and sold locally. The Barnes house, as well as the Griffey and McCafferty houses, were all built during this time.

Ed Barnes at Rochester Junction (Courtesy of Rod and Susan Wilson)

Edward S. Barnes was born in Hope, New Jersey in 1857 and migrated to Avon Township with his parents. In his youth, he was employed in the old Barnes Brothers paper mill, and then spent two decades as station agent and telegrapher at Rochester Junction on the Michigan Central Railroad line. During this time, he built a steam inspection car of his own design and used it as a personal vehicle to travel up and down the railroad line. The little car drew considerable attention, and a story about it was featured in several national magazines (click here to read one of them).

In 1903, Barnes decided to retire from the railroad and enter the jewelry business in Rochester. He built a store at 309 S. Main street, and three years later, built this house at Second and Pine. He sold his business around 1925 and died in his home in Rochester in 1931, at the age of 74.

This view of the Edward S. Barnes house was published in the 1907 Rochester directory.

This Month in Rochester History

In May 1962, Rochester area residents were looking forward to checking out the community's newest recreation venue - the North Hill Lanes bowling center, located at 150 W. Tienken. Lou Koprince was the proprietor of the brand-new, 32-lane facility, which is still operating in the same building today.  Grand opening festivities for North Hill Lanes were held on May 17, 1962, and in honor of the event, family bowling passes were offered allowing 40 lines of bowling for four dollars.

Known today as Avon North Hill Lanes, the bowling center deserves hearty golden anniversary congratulations!

The newspaper advertisement seen here is from May 1962. Notice that the telephone number is still the same.

Main Street Stories: Palmer's Rink

The buildings at 409, 411 and 413 South Main Street are part of a structure built in 1884 that was originally known as Palmer's Palace Rink.  Rochester merchant Louis Eugene Palmer broke ground for a roller skating rink on this site in November 1884.  The Rochester Era described the project:

L.E. Palmer has broken ground for a brick skating rink on Main st. adjoining his new store on the north [his new store was the building at 405-407 S. Main, which he had built in 1883]. The skating floor will be 45x110 ft. in the clear, with truss-roof, so that nothing will interfere with the skaters. In addition there will be an office and spectators gallery 15x50 ft. and a barber shop of the same dimensions.

The grand opening of Palmer's Palace Rink was held in February 1885, with the eighteen-piece Rochester Cornet Band providing the music.  Palmer had caught the tail-end of the the roller skating craze that was sweeping the nation at the time, however; within five years he was using the rink as a dance hall instead, and had partitioned the front part of the building, along Main Street, into storefronts. According to newspaper accounts in the Rochester Era, Palmer enclosed the southeast corner of the rink for his jewelry store in 1886, and the northeast corner was enclosed for a barber shop in 1887.  The center section, on the Main Street side, had been a barber shop from the beginning.  By 1919, the rear portion of the rink building was gone, and the only part that remained of Palmer's Palace Rink was the three small, one-story storefronts along Main Street, which we know today as 409, 411 and 413 S. Main.

Over the years, 409 S. Main was occupied by jewelry stores for much of the time. Louis Palmer had his jewelry business there in 1886, and his daughter, Pauline Palmer, had her own jewelry there in the 1950s.  In the late 1950s, Lamoreaux Jewelry was there, and Lamoreaux was followed by Heller's Jewelry in 1961. The center section of the rink, known today as 411 S. Main and currently occupied by the Spy Shop, was originally John Hartwell's barber shop. Around 1900 it was George Axford's tobacco shop, then Miller's Bakery in the 1920s and 1930s. It was Rochester Refrigeration and Clarence's Appliances in the 1950s and early 1960s, and Symar Locksmiths from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. The north section of the building, at 413 S. Main, has housed the Arnold & Schultz meat market around 1900, the LeBlond & Tietz Butcher Shop in 1915, Stackhouse Brothers meats in the 1920s and 1930s, Fred S. Palmer Jewelry and Optometry in the 1950s, and Marvin Weisman Optometry from the late 1950s to the late 1980s.

The photo shown here was taken in front of a portion of the Palmer's Palace Rink building some time after the three storefronts had been enclosed. It is used here with permission from Dorene Dobat Whitbey and is part of her family photo collection. The man shown with the cow in the foreground is Christopher Dobat.  Notice the condition of the Main Street road bed at the time, as well as the reflection of the Masonic Block building, which stood across the street from this location, seen in the store windows.

My thanks to Dorene Dobat Whitbey for permission to publish this historic photograph.

Rochester Elevator is Michigan Milestone Business

The Rochester Elevator has just been recognized by the Historical Society of Michigan with a Michigan Milestone Business award for its 132 years of continuous service to the community.  Established in 1880 by Charles K. Griggs and his brother, Albert G. Griggs, the elevator is the oldest continuously operating business within the city limits of Rochester.  Michigan Milestone award plaques are granted to businesses and organizations that have passed milestones of fifty, one hundred, or one hundred fifty years of service, and the elevator has been granted a centennial business award for having passed the century milestone. (This is not the first award for the venerable elevator, as it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in December 2010.)  Shown here is the elevator's owner and operator, Lawrence Smith, with his Michigan Centennial Business marker.

Vanished Rochester: Abram Horn Building

Rochester is fortunate that many of the brick business blocks that were built along Main Street during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century are still standing for us to appreciate and enjoy.  One such building that has vanished from the landscape, however, is the Abram Horn Building, which stood at 426-428 S. Main Street from 1886 to 1962. The Victorian-style block was built in the summer of 1886 by merchant Abram Horn and his wife, Esther Mariah Hayes Horn, to house their respective grocery and millinery businesses.  Esther Horn was a native of Michigan, but her husband was born in Upper Mt. Bethel, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, and was one of a large number of people from that area who migrated to Rochester and Avon Township in the first half of the nineteenth century. (Among the former Northampton County, Pennsylvania residents who also settled in Rochester were the Fox, Butts, Immick, Lomason and Reimer families, as well as George Horton and Dr. William Deats.) After Abram Horn died in 1912 and his wife followed him in 1914, their daughter, Belle Horn Hadley, ran a "fancy goods" shop in this location.  In the 1920s, the Horn building housed the Little Blue Style Shop and in the 1940s was the home of the Belle Greene Beauty Shoppe. In the 1950s, the Fashion Beauty Salon, Avon Taxi and the Carmichael Bus Lines were located there. The last tenant in the Horn building was Larry's Pizzeria, which suffered a serious fire in April 1961. The Horn building was torn down soon thereafter.

This photo from the collection of Marjorie and the late Walter Dernier shows the Horn building as it looked in 1961, just before it was razed.

Memory's Eye: Opera House Block

The look of Main Street is changing by the day as the reconstruction project gets underway, but some of our iconic landmarks, like the Opera House block, are recognizable no matter what is going on around them.  This photo, taken yesterday morning, is mashed up with a view of the building taken in the late 1950s, when Schoolcraft's Drug Store and Eggleston's department store occupied the building.  My thanks to the Swords Family Archive for lending the vintage photo of the building.

This Month in Rochester History

In April 1962, the front page of the Rochester Clarion noted the passing of two prominent members of the community.  First reported on April 5 was the death of Dr. Morgan J. Smead, who had left his veterinary practice in Port Huron in 1914 to join the professional staff at the Parkedale Biological Farms east of the village of Rochester. Dr. Smead retired from Parke-Davis in 1950 and remained a resident in his adopted home town of Rochester until his death at age 78 in 1962.

Two weeks later, the Clarion reported the death of Alfred G. Wilson, husband of the former Matilda Rausch Dodge, who with his wife had built the magnificent Meadow Brook Hall on their large stock farm west of Rochester.  Alfred Wilson had made his fortune in lumber and real estate, and together with his wife, left Meadow Brook farms to the state of Michigan for the establishment of the school that is known today as Oakland University.