Subdivision Stories: Parker Addition

In 1902 the Detroit Sugar Company, which operated a large sugar beet processing mill on Woodward Street in Rochester, deeded a parcel of its land to Edward Horatio Parker, who was the secretary of the company at the time.  Parker and his wife, Eleanor Carroll Parker, were very prominent residents of Detroit. Edward Parker had attended Yale University before taking a job as the assistant manager of the Diamond Match Company's Detroit factory. He later became an officer of the Detroit Sugar Company, and after its demise, went into the real estate and insurance business. He was also appointed a fire commissioner for the city of Detroit by Hazen S. Pingree.

The Parkers subdivided the land that they acquired from the Detroit Sugar Company and platted it as the Parker Addition to the Village of Rochester, placing the lots on the market in late 1902.  Since the plat lay immediately to the north of the W. C. Chapman and Ludlow additions, Ludlow Street was extended through the Parker addition all the way to Paint Creek.  The Parkers were never residents of Rochester, and lived their entire lives in Detroit. They are buried in Elmwood Cemetery.