Memorial Day Parade

It's hard for me to believe, but the photo accompanying this post was taken 29 years ago, on Memorial Day 1981. At that time, the annual Memorial Day parade departed from the Rochester Municipal Building after a wreath-laying ceremony, and made its way to Mount Avon Cemetery, where a program was held. I remember listening to the RHS Falcon Marching Band (Rochester's First and Finest) as they entered the cemetery gate, stepping to a hushed cadence that was solemnly tapped out on the rims of their drums.

We'll have a Memorial Day parade this year, on Monday, May 31. The parade will depart from Mount Avon Cemetery at 10:00 a.m. and proceed down Harding Road to Livernois, ending at Veterans' Memorial Pointe, where a program will be held to remember the nation's honored dead. Please take time out of your holiday weekend to participate in this important community observance.

This photo shows the RHS precision drill team, the Rochester Falconettes, marching down University Drive in the parade. Any former Falconettes out there?

Main Street Stories: Thomas W. Hacker block

Thomas W. Hacker built a new brick building at 330 S. Main St. in the summer of 1886, to house his meat market. A description in the Rochester Era gives us a glimpse of what a state-of-the-art meat market looked like 124 years ago:

The new building is 20x70 ft., two stories high, with a fine cellar under all. The salesroom is 20x30 ft., with full plate glass front, and furnished with a marble-top counter. Just back of this room is the ice-box eleven feet square, where the meats for immediate use are kept, the contents being plainly visible through a plate glass front running the width of the box.

The business was known as the Palace Meat Market, and in an ad for the grand opening of the new store, sirloin steaks were offered for twelve cents a pound.
Four years later, there was major activity on the east side of Main, between Third and Fourth, where the Palace Meat Market was located. Charles A. Burr was building the Opera House block, and his brother Frank Burr was building a two-store block adjacent to the Opera House on the south. One lot stood between Frank Burr's new block and the Palace Meat Market, so Thomas W. Hacker tore down the small building that stood there and built another new brick store to fill in the block. The Era reported:

The Hacker brick building adjoining his meat market has been torn down to make room for a new one, which will be erected in connection with the Burr stores. When this full block is completed it will be an ornament and the pride of the village. Work on it is steadily being pushed forward, a full corps of workmen being employed thereon.

The new building bore the address of 332 S. Main. Over the years, occupants of the two Hacker buildings included Wiley & Bitters, the T.E. Nichols Furniture and Undertaking business, Bebout's restaurant, and Mitzelfeld's at 330, and Nichols Furniture, Pixley Furniture and Mitzelfeld's at 332. Once the Mitzelfeld block expanded to absorb the buildings at 330 and 332 S. Main, the storefronts became part of the Mitzelfeld facade and used the Mitzelfeld address number. After Mitzelfeld's closed, the buildings formerly known as 330-332 became 324 S. Main. O'Connor's Public House is currently located there.

This postcard view of the Hacker block from the collection of the Rochester Hills Public Library shows the buildings as they looked around 1912.

Vanished Rochester: Wood Dawn

Area residents are probably familiar with the Loren Andrus Octagon House in nearby Washington Township, but may not be aware that the Rochester area once had its very own octagon house, named Wood Dawn. The house disappeared from our local landscape decades before I was born, but fortunately one of the nineteenth-century pamphlets promoting Rochester carried this picture of it, so we have some idea what it looked like.

Wood Dawn stood on a farm just west of the village of Rochester, in the area that we know today as Great Oaks. According to a 1909 memoir by Samuel Harris that was published in the Rochester Era, the octagon house was built by Lyman Wilcox, who owned the property for a large part of the nineteenth century, and stood on the property during the tenure of subsequent owners including Rufus Schermerhorn and dairy farm operator John C. Day. Octagon architecture had become something of a minor sensation in the United States after an amateur architect named Orson Squire Fowler published a book in 1848 touting the benefits of the octagon house. Fowler claimed, among other things, that octagon homes were cheaper to build and heat, afforded more natural light, and provided healthier ventilation.

Rochester's octagon house was described in the Rochester Clarion in the spring of 1939, as it was being razed after Howard McGregor bought the property on which it stood for his Great Oaks Stock Farm. The Clarion said, in part:

One of the many improvements being made on the old J.C. Day farm, west of town, is the razing of the once beautiful stone mansion occupied by its former owner in days gone by.
The structure, octagon shaped, is over 100 years old, three stories high and had 42 rooms. There was a beautiful spiral stairway in the very center of the house leading from the basement direct to the glass enclosed turret three floors above, with two landings between each floor. Every piece of lumber used in the construction of the house was oak.

Wood Dawn was probably not quite 100 years old when it was torn down in 1939, despite the Clarion's claim, but it was definitely an interesting piece of Rochester's early history, now consigned to the pages of vanished Rochester.

Bygone Business: Rochester Packing

The building at 301 Hacker St., along the Clinton River, that housed the Rochester Packing Company was built in the summer of 1947 by Roy Mason. Mason slaughtered and butchered locally-raised cattle and hogs at his processing plant, and sold his meat at Mason's Market, his retail store at Fourth and West Alley, at the back of the D&C building.

Rochester Packing was later owned by Art and Al Gruener, who sold meat and meat products from a retail counter right at the plant on Hacker. The Grueners closed the business on May 3, 1988.

Anybody else remember taking a grade school field trip tour of the packing house and finding out how sausage is made, up close?

This ad for the Rochester Packing Company ran in the Clarion in 1964.

This Month in Rochester History

During the month of May, we look back at a milestone event in the history of the Rochester Hills Public Library. The library's roots as a public institution go back to 1924, when it was established as the Avon Township Free Public Library, and was housed in a couple of different locations on Main Street before moving into the former Charles K. Griggs home at 210 W. Fifth Street (northeast corner of Pine) in 1928.

One of the library's principal supporters in those days was Eva Woodward Parker, the daughter of Rochester's pioneer farmer and former legislator, Lysander Woodward. When Eva Woodward Parker died in 1933, she left money to the library to be used for the construction of a new building. This project was started in 1949, and on May 30, 1951, fifty-nine years ago this month, dedication ceremonies were held for the new building on the former site of the Griggs residence at Fifth & Pine.

The new building was christened Woodward Memorial Library in honor of Eva Woodward Parker's family name. It was built by Frank Rewold and was designed by a prominent Detroit architect, William Edward Kapp. Kapp had worked for many years with the firm of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls (the former incarnation of today's SmithGroup, which is the longest continuously operating architectural firm in the United States). While working for Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, Kapp designed Meadow Brook Hall for Alfred and Matilda Wilson, and also designed the Wilson Theatre (known today as the Music Hall) in Detroit. Both of these structures are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Kapp-designed library building in Rochester was expanded twice to accommodate the ever-growing collections and increasing demand for services. In 1992, the Rochester Hills Public Library moved to its current location on Old Towne Road and the Kapp building at 210 W. University was remodeled into boutique business suites.

This photo of the William E. Kapp-designed library building at 210 W. University was taken in 1985.

Everything New is Old Again

This past week the restored front of the business block at 415-417 S. Main was unveiled, after having been covered by scaffold for several months. Originally built by Louis E. Palmer in 1896-97 to house his jewelry business, the building was later the home of the House of Custom Color for about three decades. Fifty years ago, the building was remodeled and a faux-Colonial front replaced the original. In more recent years, the front sported plain siding, which completely covered the six windows and architectural details that once adorned it.

The new "old" storefront that we see here is the design of John Dziurman Architects, Ltd., and is only the latest in a series of facade improvements on Main Street that are returning downtown to its architectural roots. This building looks great, and I think Louis Palmer would be proud.

If you would like to know more about the historic buildings of downtown Rochester, join the Rochester Avon Historical Society for the first downtown walking tour of the season on Thursday, April 29 at 7:00 p.m. The tour will meet outside the Rochester Mills Brewery at Fourth and Water Streets (look for the man with the top hat). Wear your walking shoes, and plan to spend about two hours visiting sites, hearing stories and looking at historic photos. Cost is $5 per person, $3 for students and seniors (children under 12 free). The walking tours are a great way to get some exercise, meet your neighbors, and learn about the community's rich history.

Main Street Stories: Edward S. Barnes Building

The building at 309 S. Main began its life as a jewelry shop. Edward S. Barnes broke ground for his new store in the fall of 1903, and according to the Rochester Era, opened his doors to customers in time for Christmas:

E.S. Barnes has his neat new store nearly ready for business and will open next week with a fine new line of jewelry and be ready for the holiday trade.

Barnes was born in New Jersey in 1857, the son of Samuel and Ann Moore Barnes. He came with his parents to Avon Township and was employed for a number of years at the Barnes Paper Mill. He also learned telegraphy and worked as a telegraph operator and agent for the Michigan Central Railroad. In 1903, he decided to leave his former occupation and go into the jewelry business, and continued in that line until 1925.

In that year, Edward S. Barnes sold out to Frank M. Deschaine, who briefly continued the jewelry store. In 1926, Deschaine sold to A.D. Brown, who ran a paint and wallpaper store in the location. In 1929, Lloyd E. Hanna opened his barbershop at 309 and conducted it there for many years. By 1950, the building was home to Cameron's Barber Shop and the Clara-Ann Beauty Salon, and in 1953 it once again housed a jewelry store when Lloyd Lake opened his business there. Lake Jewelers was a fixture at 309 S. Main until the mid-1980s, and had the longest tenure in the building of any business to date, including Barnes himself. After Lloyd Lake's retirement, the building housed a number of businesses including Charlotte's Boutique and the current occupant, Legends Of Time Native American Gallery.

The Edward S. Barnes building celebrates its 107th birthday this year.

Subdivision Stories: North Hill

One of the biggest post-war housing developments in the then-village of Rochester was the North Hill Subdivision, approved in 1955. Located west of Rochester Road and south of Tienken, the subdivision lay partially in the village and partially in the Township of Avon. At the time, there was a huge demand for affordable housing for veterans seeking to relocate from the city to the suburbs, and in particular, housing north of the village was in demand because of its desirable proximity to National Twist Drill, the community's leading employer during the post-war era.

North Hill was planned as a $7 million dollar development which included 220 affordable ranch homes and a 160,000 square foot shopping center to be anchored by a Wrigley supermarket. The project was developed by Sam Frankel, executive vice-president of Wrigley's Stores, Inc., and Richard Reitman of the Beverly Construction Company. The homes were marketed by the Rose Hill Realty Company of Detroit.

The Rochester Clarion described the plans for the layout of the subdivision in May of 1955:

Taking advantage of the natural rolling countryside, the builder is erecting the homes on curvilinear paved streets, with each street elevated about the other to give the hillside community the striking appearance of an outdoor stadium.

Buyers were given their choice of ten possible exterior designs. Descriptions of the interior features and finishes give a glimpse of what was attractive to homeowners at the time:

In the spacious kitchen, knotty pine paneling forms a backdrop for the dining area. The large-sized cabinets are also finished in knotty pine with hammered copper hardware.
....
Buyers are given a choice of formica or tile counter tops and a choice of color in the floor linoleum which also covers the grade landing and basement stairs.
A shadow box above the basement staircase provides and unusual decorative effect, and a farm door at the grade landing prevents children from falling down the basement stairs.
A folding door separates the kitchen from the large living-dining room. A shadow box heightens the attractiveness of the vestibule entrance to the living room.

Apparently, these amenities were more than enough to bring in the buyers. The new homes in North Hill were priced from $15,690, and the terms were $790 down for veterans, $2190 for civilians. On the first weekend that the models were open in May of 1955, over 4,600 people visited the development and over half a million dollars of business was transacted in two days' time.

The North Hill subdivision celebrates its 55th birthday this year.

This advertisement for the North Hill subdivision ran in the Rochester Clarion in May of 1955.

The River Gang

When I was growing up, my family lived in the Albertson Addition and my playground was the Rochester Municipal Park. During our pre-teen years, we neighborhood kids would enter the park from the foot of Griggs St. with considerable trepidation. We had been told stories about a mysterious group of older youths who styled themselves the "River Gang." Their hideout, local wisdom warned, was on the north bank of Paint Creek, and we dared not trespass on their "territory" for fear of being beaten up - or worse.

We saw evidence of someone's presence along the river, in the form of graffiti and discarded beer cans, but we never came into personal contact with anyone who claimed to be a member of the much-feared River Gang. I began to wonder whether they were just the product of our collective imaginations, or perhaps an urban - make that suburban - legend. Then came a front-page story in the Rochester Clarion on September 28, 1972, in which city officials not only named the notorious River Gang as a serious problem in the park, but gave the group its fifteen minutes of fame:

Boys and girls who call themselves the River Gang have been joined by older teens and young adults from here, and from Royal Oak, Warren and Utica and elsewhere. They hide in the dark brush covered park "natural area" for all night parties in disregard of the park closing hour.
...
The thick brush easily within view of the Municipal Building hides a rotten, abused clearing and jungle stretch of Paint Creek bank that is said to be unsafe for women and children even in many bright daylight hours, and worse in the evenings and pre-dawn! Well worn paths lead in and out, making capture of the park closing hour violators next to impossible.
From 30 feet away, the nighttime miscreants cannot be seen, but nearby residents testify that loud obscenities and foul language are heard at distances of a half block from the spot.
The hidden place is littered with items of clothing, moldy blankets, beer empties and broken glass. There is evidence that park furniture and picnic tables have been dragged away and smashed to bits for firewood.

The article went on to say that city officials planned to evict the River Gang from its hangout by removing the undergrowth that screened its hiding place, and by turning the river bank into a recreation area that could be used by all. This was done, and the River Gang faded into oblivion. I took this photo a few days ago in the park and there is little resemblance to the bank as it appeared in the River Gang's outlaw days.

Bygone Business: Behm's Dairy

On May 23, 1936, Mrs. Edwin J. Behm held the grand opening of Behm's Dairy and Ice Cream Parlor at 311 S. Main St. The Behms had located their dairy business in Rochester in 1924, when they began operating a creamery in a small block building on N. Pine St., between Griggs and Albertson. When they expanded to Main St. in 1936, their retail store quickly became a popular place for teens and was a mainstay of the downtown for twenty-five years.

By 1961, Behm's Dairy was forced to leave 311 S. Main because the building had been sold and partially condemned. The new owners planned to demolish the rear portion of the building (which had been a furniture warehouse back in the days when the structure house a furniture and undertaking business), install a new front facade, and locate a gift store there.

The Behms decided to move their business to Port Austin, but they left Rochester with heavy hearts. In an interview with the Rochester Clarion in March of 1961, Mrs. Behm expressed her regret at saying farewell to the estimated 250 children per day that she served in her store, after telling them that the store would close on or about April 15 in that year.

'You never saw such bawling as when we told them about it,' Mrs. Behm said. 'They all sat here and cried.'

Did you hang out at Behm's Dairy? If you did, what was your favorite item on the menu?

This bottle cap from a Behm's Dairy product container is from the collection of Rod and Susan Wilson.

This Month in Rochester History

April is the month in which we mark the anniversary of the passing of a mass transit system that served Rochester for more than a generation - the Detroit United Railway.

The D.U.R. was organized in 1900 from a collection of smaller street railway lines operating in the city of Detroit. In 1901, the D.U.R. acquired a number of suburban lines, including the Detroit, Rochester, Romeo & Lake Orion Railway, or D.R.R. & L.O, which had laid track into Rochester in 1899. The D.R.R. & L.O. had been responsible for the first bridge from South Hill to the foot of Main Street, in the form of a wooden trestle built to carry the streetcars into town.

The D.R.R. & L.O. had also established a car barn and powerhouse in Rochester and was one of the principal employers in the village. When the D.U.R. took over, the company extended its line to Flint and beyond, and the Rochester powerhouse produced electricity for the entire Flint Division.

The D.U.R. was well-used and provided cheap and convenient mass transportation, but it fell victim to the rise of the automobile within a generation. As more people began to enjoy the freedom of driving their own cars, ridership on the interurban line decreased accordingly. At the same time, trucks were beginning to offer more flexible, cheaper freight service. The D.U.R. also had considerable legal trouble with its franchises within the city of Detroit, and by the mid-1920s, all of these factors had converged to bring the line to its knees financially. The stock market crash and resulting Great Depression dealt the final blow.

As far as Rochester was concerned, the end of the streetcar line came on April 25, 1931, the last day on which regular scheduled service was offered. Soon thereafter, the remaining rolling stock on the line clattered its way out of town. The trestle was dismantled and salvaged, the tall chimney at the former powerhouse was dynamited, and the streetcar era in Rochester closed for good, 79 years ago this month.

Rochester's Role in WWII

The Rochester Avon Historical Society will present the story of the area's participation in World War II at a public program on Thursday, April 1 at 7:00 p.m. Local historians Rod Wilson and Pat McKay will tell the stories of the work that was done at National Twist Drill and McAleer Manufacturing Company, and remember the service of the more than 1,100 men and women from the community who wore the nation's uniform during the war. Among the special guests for the evening will be several World War II veterans who will share their personal stories.

The free program will be held at the Rochester Hills Public Library, 500 Olde Towne Road. Everyone is invited to attend.

Pioneer Farmsteads: Abner C. Parker Farm

In Rochester Hills, we have only a handful of nineteenth-century farmhouses remaining to bear testimony to the agricultural heritage of the former Township of Avon. The best-known and best-preserved example is probably the Taylor-Van Hoosen farm in Stoney Creek, but if you look closely as you travel through Rochester Hills, you will spot some others. This occasional series will look at our remaining pioneer farmsteads.

The subject of this post is the Abner C. Parker farmstead, which was located on the east side of Crooks Road, north of Hamlin and south of the Christian Hills subdivision. A mid-nineteenth century farmhouse still stands on this property (currently in distressed condition), and is an example of the "upright and a wing" design that was a fairly common house style in its day.

Abner C. Parker was born in Wayne County, New York in 1814 and migrated, with his wife Eleanor, to Oakland County, Michigan about 1840. He purchased several tracts of land in Avon and in other places, but chose to make his home in Avon Township. On February 10, 1857, Parker purchased most of the southeast quarter of section 20, as well as a portion of section 21. This property included a sawmill along the Clinton River, according to the 1872 plat of Avon shown here. Abner Parker was also listed a the proprietor of a sawmill in Avon in the 1863-64 Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory.

Eleanor Parker died in 1864, and was buried in Mt. Avon Cemetery in Rochester. Abner Parker then married Rebecca DeMun, who died in 1880 and was also buried in the Parker plot in Mt. Avon. Abner's third wife, Nancy Smith, whom he married in 1881, survived him, as did several children of his first two marriages. Abner Parker died on July 24, 1884, at the age of seventy, and was buried in Mt. Avon near his first two wives. His children sold the property on Crooks Road to his widow, Nancy Smith Parker, for 900 dollars in September 1884.

As architectural historians date the house on Crooks Road to the mid-nineteenth century, and given that Abner C. Parker lived on the property from 1857 to 1884, it is likely that Parker built the house and that he may have sawed the timbers for its construction on site in the sawmill that he operated along the Clinton River. The next time you pass by this location, take note of this valuable remnant of Rochester Hills' agricultural past.

Subdivision Stories: Tienken Manor Estates

In 1961, the plat for the first Tienken Manor Estates subdivision was approved by the Avon Township board, and streets and houses began appearing on the former dairy farm of John Tienken. The son of German immigrants and Avon pioneers Henry and Meta Tienken, John Tienken was born on his parents' Avon Township farm in 1864. He raised Holsteins on a farm in the northwest quarter of section 9, south of Tienken Road and west of Livernois, from which he supplied milk to the leading dairies of Detroit. Another of his agricultural ventures was the Rochester Creamery Company, a dairymens' cooperative of which he served as a director. For twenty-five years, John Tienken was also a member of the school board of the Ross School, which was located just north and west of his farm on the northeast corner of Tienken and Brewster Roads (the school building, now a private residence, still stands).

John Tienken died in 1944, and his heirs, including daughters Clarabell Kitchen and Etta Curran, eventually sold the farm for development. Tienken Manor Estates No.1 was the first of thirteen subdivisions to open, and the last was Tienken Manor Estates No.13, which was approved in 1974.

The builder of the homes in Tienken Manor was R & C - Robertson Builders of Birmingham, and the company advertised that the subdivision was the perfect mix of natural beauty and modern amenities. Streets curved to accommodate the natural rolling terrain, utilities were placed underground, and a private park was provided for the recreational benefit of the residents. Introductory models were priced at $21,900, including the lot. Today, there are 263 lots in the thirteen Tienken Manor subdivisions.

This photo from the collection of the Rochester Hills Public Library shows the John Tienken dairy farm, looking west along Tienken Road.

Halbach Field

With spring training well underway and shouts of "play ball!" just around the corner, it seems like an appropriate time to look back on the history of Rochester's own baseball ground, Halbach Field.

The village of Rochester acquired the property on which Halbach Field stands, along Woodward St. near Paint Creek, after the Detroit Sugar Company demolished its factory at that location in 1906. Around 1923, local residents started using the vacant land unofficially as a ball park. In the spring of 1925, the village took steps to improve the field by grading, filling and seeding the property. In announcing that the new athletic field was almost ready for use, the Rochester Clarion championed the cause of organized baseball in the village:

Rochester has needed just such a field these many years, and now that same has been secured, it is to be hoped a good ball team may be formulated and maintained as in other years, thereby bringing to our city many visitors from neighboring villages of the county, as it is bound to do.
With the possibility of our business places all closing on Wednesday afternoons during the months of June, July and August, as is now planned, why not organize a first class ball team and hold games each Wednesday for the entertainment of those who now can get away to see a game and at the same time have a tendency to keep our people at home upon these half holidays, in which, as time rolls on our city is sure to benefit therefrom.

The field opened in June 1925, when the Rochester Independents defeated a team from Armada by a score of 4 to 2. In 1936, local civic leader and Detroit Edison supervisor Fred Halbach led a campaign to light the field and and install a grandstand so that evening softball games could be played. Despite the fact that the nation was still struggling through the Great Depression, townspeople contributed nearly $1,000 under Halbach's encouragement to make the improvements to the ball park. The dedication ceremonies were held on June 24, 1936, and in a surprise move during the festivities, the village fathers announced that the facility would be named Halbach Field in honor of Fred Halbach and all of his efforts to improve the field. Unfortunately, Halbach had very little time to enjoy the fruits of his labors, as he died unexpectedly just six months later.

This photo from the collection of the Rochester Hills Public Library shows the dedication ceremonies underway at Halbach Field on June 24, 1936.

Main Street Stories: Charles H. Allen Building

The building at 329 S. Main Street has housed a variety of businesses in its history, but it started out as a saloon. Charles H. Allen, of Pontiac, broke ground for his building in August 1899, and it took shape quickly. The Rochester Era reported on September 15th of that year that "brick has arrived and the laying of the same has commenced on the new Allen block."

Allen then applied to the village council for a liquor license, but was turned down until his bond was guaranteed, two weeks later, by David W. Butts and Philip Lomason. With the legalities satisfied and the building finished, the saloon opened in November 1899 and Allen moved his family from Pontiac to the upstairs rooms in his new business block.

Charles Henry Allen died in 1907 and his building next housed the drug store of Luel H. Smith. The Rochester Variety Store followed Smith's pharmacy, and was purchased in March 1922 by Leslie Aris. When Aris moved his dime store down the block around 1937, a Western Auto Store opened at 329 S. Main. Western Auto relocated to the Tienken Building in the early 1940s, and the Village China Shop replaced it for a time, followed by the Jan Nan Shop. From the 1960s to the 1980s, the building housed Joe's Barber Shop and a succession of beauty parlors. Today, the former Allen saloon at 329 S. Main is the home of the Sole Sisters shoe and accessory boutique.

The Charles H. Allen block celebrates its 111th birthday this summer.

This view of the Charles H. Allen block from the collection of Marjorie and the late Walter Dernier shows how the building looked about 1961, when it housed a barber and beauty shop.

Vanished Rochester: The Haven

In the summer of 1926, industrialist Fred Marvin Shinnick began construction of a large country estate in Avon Township (now Rochester Hills), just west of the village of Rochester. Shinnick, who was born in Detroit in 1877, was secretary-treasurer of the Briggs Manufacturing Company, which during the period between the world wars was the nation's largest independent producer of automobile bodies. He also owned and operated the Rochester Dairy during the twenties.

Shinnick and his wife, the former Lillian Graham, located their new home on the former Manwaring farm on the north side of Walton Boulevard near Old Perch Road, and named it “The Haven.” The Rochester Era described the property for its readers in 1928:

The very handsome home completed a year a half ago stands back a full quarter of a mile from the road and is reached by a winding driveway. Built of red brick in old English style, it stands in spacious grounds containing 70 acres in all. At the back of the house is a lovely rock-garden and the ground slopes down to a fine natural pool with delightful woods and a ravine yet farther on. In front of the landscaping is still incomplete, although most attractive even in its present stage. Mr. and Mrs. Shinnick and their children lately returned from their respective schools, are all at home at present to enjoy their lovely surroundings.

The Clarion called The Haven “palatial,” and estimated that the cost of its construction exceeded $250,000. The home was lavishly appointed and even featured a two-manual Skinner pipe organ specifically designed for the space. (Pipe organ fans can click here to read the specs for the Shinnick instrument, Skinner op.599).

In 1932, according to Fred Shinnick's obituary, he and his wife Lillian decided to convert their home into a private psychiatric hospital. Their reasons were not stated, but the economic realities of the Great Depression were more than likely a major factor. Large estates were costly to operate and many passed out of private hands or were converted to other uses during the difficult Depression years.

Shinnick operated The Haven Sanitarium until his retirement in 1938, at which time his son, Graham, took over as hospital administrator. The Haven was known for treating well-to-do patients whose identities and privacy were carefully guarded. Rumors swirled that some of Hollywood's famous stars were numbered among its patients over the years.

There was an air of mystery surrounding The Haven, and children were spooked by it. Occasional news stories, such as this one from the Rochester Era in March, 1938, only served to increase the interest:

On Sunday, Sam Howlett was called to The Haven, west of Rochester on the Pontiac road, to participate in a hunt for a lunatic, who had escaped and fled across the fields fifteen minutes previously. Shortly after the call, police found the broken bonds which the prisoner had apparently cut with a hedge clipper in a garage back of the sanitorium and had vanished. While Chief Howlett was searching the section a report was phoned in to Deputy Ted Gunn that the fugitive was entering Rochester in the vicinity of Woodward street. Gunn immediately rushed to that street and seized him. Officials of The Haven conducted the patient to Receiving Hospital, Detroit, believing him too dangerous to keep at the sanitorium.

Notice the vocabulary that was used in those days: the individual is referred to as a “lunatic,” a “prisoner” and a “fugitive,” but not until the end of the article is he called a “patient.” No wonder the local kids were spooked by The Haven!

Not all of The Haven's publicity was negative, however. In 1949, Rochester made the magazine section of newspapers throughout the country when a feature appeared describing the “Rochester Plan,” a partnership between the school district and The Haven to provide mental health services to local students. The article by Robert Goldman, entitled “Rochester Counsels Its Children,” reported in its lead paragraph that the claim to fame for the quiet little village of Rochester, Michigan was that “it is the smallest town in the United States boasting a full-fledged psychological counseling program.”

The Haven operated as a psychiatric hospital for thirty-six years, but closed in 1968 due to declining occupancy and rising operating costs. The once grand Shinnick home sat vacant thereafter, and owing to its location so far off the main road, became a magnet for squatters, vandals and teens looking for a place to party. The caretaker and the Oakland County Sheriff's Department fought an ongoing battle to run the intruders off the property, but despite their efforts the old house was torn apart piece by piece.

Late in the evening of November 2, 1973, the Rochester Fire Department was called to a fire at The Haven. They found numerous problems in fighting the blaze and sounded two more alarms, answered by the Brooklands and Avondale departments. Fire department historian William A. Cahill recorded that the nearest hydrant was on the south side of Walton, so fire fighters had to lay 1,200 feet of hose to reach the house, and cars on Walton hampered their efforts by running over the hose line. Further, the heavy slate roof on the Tudor-revival house created an oven effect in the building. A large crowd of gawkers and onlookers added to the difficulties.

The end of The Haven came when the fire chewed away the roof supports and sent the heavy slate crashing down. Near dawn on November 3, after 40,000 gallons of water had been poured onto the blaze, the house was nothing but a smoldering ruin.

A few years after the fire, the property was redeveloped and became the Grosse Pines subdivision, but one reminder of The Haven still stands in testimony to the property's former use. The ledge rock wall and gates that adorned the Walton Boulevard frontage of The Haven property are yet visible among the tall pines at the entrance to the subdivision.

This postcard view of The Haven shows the ledge rock wall that is still visible today along Walton Boulevard.

This Month in Rochester History

One of the Detroit area newspapers once ran a photo feature about Rochester's Walnut Boulevard, calling it an "avenue of churches," and noting that the Episcopalian, Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Nazarene meeting places were located within a two-block section of the street. The typical "small town" portrait that the newspaper painted had been true for decades, but as the population of post-war Rochester grew and brought more people into the pews, the Walnut Boulevard churches strained to accommodate them. Sixty-two years ago this month, on March 28, 1948, the first of those congregations began the process of moving away from Walnut Boulevard to a more spacious location.

The members of St. John Lutheran Church, who had been meeting in a converted residence on the corner of Second and Walnut since 1935, had outgrown their quarters and voted to build a new church and school facility. Three years earlier, the congregation had purchased the former Oscar Brewster property at the corner of Helen and Fifth (later University Drive), including a residence and barn. A new building was planned for this site which included a sanctuary, two classrooms, a fellowship hall, kitchen and office spaces, at a total cost of $130,000. The former Brewster residence was used as a parsonage.

Although excavation of the basement and laying of water and sewer pipes had already begun, the congregation chose to conduct a ceremonial groundbreaking on Easter Sunday, March 28, 1948. Two years later, construction was complete and the facility was dedicated. The building that was started in 1948 is still a part of the St. John campus today, although it is now "surrounded" by additions made in 1958, 1967, 1986 and 2001 and looks much different that it did in the accompanying photograph.

St. John was the first to outgrow Walnut Boulevard, but not the last. St. Philip's moved in 1951, St. Paul's in 1959, First Congregational in 1960, First Church of the Nazarene in 1965, St. Andrew's in 1969, and First Baptist in 1973.

X-Rated Rochester

Got your attention, didn''t I? And for those of you who are wondering, "where's the picture that goes with this post?" - you are out of luck. This is a family-friendly blog.

The recent news about the Detroit City Council's efforts to control the number, location and nature of strip clubs in Detroit reminded me of the Rochester area's own struggle with the same issue almost thirty years ago. The controversy involved the Northcrest Cinema at 298 W. Tienken Rd., near the intersection of Rochester & Tienken.

The Northcrest was a conventional movie theater when it opened in 1976, with a 352-seat auditorium less than half the size of the Hills Theatre. Problems developed four years later, after the ownership had changed and the theater began to offer x-rated fare. Avon Township officials made an attempt to shut the Northcrest down, and there were citizen protests complete with picket lines, but the theater prevailed against the initial challenges on First Amendment grounds. The Oakland County Sheriff's Department conducted at least three raids on the business, which successfully defended its right to stage nude "amateur nights" in 1986.

After Avon Township became the city of Rochester Hills, the new city enacted a zoning ordinance in 1987 to control the location of adult entertainment venues that might be proposed in the future. Northcrest Cinema was not located in an area zoned for such use, but had to be grandfathered in because it was established before the ordinance was adopted. The theater owners pressed their luck in 1988, however, when they applied for permits to remodel the building. The proposed work would have removed the theater-style seating in favor of lounge seating and renovated the stage to better accommodate live nude entertainment, in essence converting the theater to an adult nightclub.

City officials denied the permits for the work, and the two sides headed to court once again. The Northcrest owners filed a lawsuit in federal court to overturn the city's zoning ordinance, but the city prevailed. After spending nearly ten years in an adversarial relationship with city government, the sheriff's department, and neighbors in the area, the owners gave up and closed the Northcrest Cinema for good in late September 1989. In reporting the news of the theater's demise on its front page, the Rochester Eccentric quoted Rochester Hills mayor Billie Ireland:

I'm delighted -- I would even be happy to send them a bon voyage card. It's been a long fight over the last 10 years to encourage them to leave. I'm extremely delighted they are leaving after so many years. That makes my day.

The following year, the former Northcrest Cinema space was renovated and converted to a child care facility, closing the book on the area's x-rated episode.

Vanished Rochester: Detroit Sugar Company

In 1899, the Detroit Sugar Company accepted the proposal of a citizens' committee from Rochester to locate a beet sugar processing plant in the village. Detroit Sugar Company was controlled by Julius Stroh of the Stroh brewing family, and Franklin Walker of the Hiram Walker distillery family, both of whom recognized an opportunity when changes were made to state law that benefited the industry. Beet sugar plants were popping up all over lower Michigan in 1899 – eight of them, in fact – due to the incentive provided by P.A. 48 of 1897, which authorized the state to pay a penny per pound “bounty” to Michigan manufacturers who produced sugar from Michigan grown beets. Coupled with a high tariff that made Cuban sugar more expensive, the sugar bounty offered a highly favorable economic climate for producing beet sugar in Michigan.

The Rochester plant was announced in the Detroit Free Press on January 18, 1899 with a headline that screamed “Rochester Gets It.” Additional news articles quoted Pontiac officials who were lamenting the fact that the county seat had lost out on the factory to sleepy little Rochester, but the Free Press pointed out that Rochester's leaders had “hustled” where Pontiac's had not, and therefore Rochester was reaping the rewards.

The Detroit architecture firm of Spier and Rohns was contracted to built the sugar factory on a site along Paint Creek in the northwest corner of the village, conveniently adjacent to the Michigan Central railroad tracks. A new street, appropriately named Sugar Avenue, was opened between North Main and Ludlow streets to serve the plant, and the interurban line ran a spur from the main track to the plant site. Very quickly, a large and imposing factory was rising against the village skyline.

The Free Press described the plans drawn by the architects in March:

The main building will be 341 by 139 feet in size and of first-class fire-proof construction, the only wood used in the building being in the window frames. The materials to be used are stone, brick, iron and terra cotta. All the floors are to be of Michigan Portland cement and the roof of cement with a covering of asphalt. A gallery will be provided from which visitors will be enabled to see the methods of manufacturing and refining. In addition to the main building there will be an office building, a laboratory 50 by 150 feet in size, and three beet sheds, each 400 feet long, from which the beets will be floated into the factory. The cost of the entire plant will be $500,000.

Sugar beets were harvested and processed in the fall of each year, and the processing season, which typically ran from October to December, was called a “campaign.” Detroit Sugar's 1899 campaign at Rochester was a small one, having gotten a late start because the factory was not quite ready for operation on October 1 as originally planned. The campaign of 1900 was stronger, but after that, a perfect storm of economic factors converged to write a swift death sentence for the new plant.

The rapid demise of Detroit Sugar Company's Rochester factory cannot be assigned to a single cause. Several developments in a short period of time acted in concert to bring the company down. For one, local farmers who had signed on enthusiastically to place their beet fields under contract to Detroit Sugar when the factory was planned began to lose interest fairly quickly. Many had not realized how labor-intensive the cultivation of sugar beets would be, and when they discovered that it required far more effort than putting seed into the ground, they began to drop out of the program. Further, the hilly terrain of Oakland County was less suited to sugar beet cultivation that the the rich, flat, open land of Michigan's Thumb region, which was producing far more product per acre than the Rochester area could. Faced with declining deliveries from local farmers, Detroit Sugar had to cast a wider net for sugar beets, thereby forcing the company to pay higher freight charges and lowering its profit margin. At the same time that the freight expenses were kicking in, another blow was dealt in 1900 when the state's sugar bounty was declared unconstitutional. For smaller plants, such as Rochester's, whose success was predicated fairly heavily upon the revenue from these subsidy payments, the blow was a serious one. The knock-out punch came in 1902, when the federal government significantly reduced the Cuban sugar tariff, allowing the imported sugar product to compete more favorably with domestic sugar.

As a capstone to the entire debacle, Thomas E. Neely of Rochester filed a lawsuit against Detroit Sugar in the spring of 1903. Neely operated a flour mill on Paint Creek, downstream from the sugar factory (near the site of today's Rochester Athletic Club on North Main), and claimed that the sugar company was discharging lime, dirt, sand, refuse, beets and beet tops into the waterway, diminishing the size of his millpond by one half. At trial, Neely was awarded $2010.64 in damages, but Detroit Sugar appealed the case all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court. The high court affirmed the lower court ruling in 1904 and Neely prevailed.

The fifth and final campaign at the Rochester factory closed at the end of 1903. The harvest delivered to the plant in 1904 was too small to make powering up the centrifuges worthwhile, so it was sold to the Mount Clemens Sugar Company for processing and the Rochester plant sat idle. A local organization of farmers made an attempt to guarantee an adequate harvest for 1905 if Detroit Sugar would re-open the plant, but their efforts failed and the factory remained dormant for the 1905 campaign as well. During its five campaigns, the Rochester plant had processed a grand total of 121,000 tons of beets and produced 25.8 million pounds of sugar.

In 1906, Detroit Sugar threw in the towel on the Rochester plant. The machinery was salvaged and sold to a company in Madison, Wisconsin, while the building, only seven years old, was demolished and the brick sold for other construction projects – some local, and others as far away as Flint. The property on which the sugar factory had stood was deeded back to the village of Rochester. Finally, in November 1927, the village fathers officially erased the last reminder of the Detroit Sugar Company when they voted to change the name of Sugar Avenue to Woodward Street, thereby consigning Detroit Sugar to the pages of Vanished Rochester.

This view of the Detroit Sugar Company factory, located on today's Woodward Street, was taken in 1899 and shows the plant still under construction.