Subdivision Stories: Charles O. Renshaw Subdivision

The Charles O. Renshaw subdivision on the south side of the Village of Rochester was platted in 1896 and was the fourth addition made to the original village plat during the nineteenth century.  Streets were laid out on the former farm land of Charles O. Renshaw and his wife Harriet Castleman Renshaw, who were both born in England and had emigrated to the United States just before the Civil War.

The Renshaw addition lay south of First Street and included the streets named Renshaw, Quarter, Peach, West, Hacker and Helmond Streets. Helmond was originally named Harrison on the subdivision plat, but was renamed in 1950 to avoid confusion with another Harrison Street in the village.

Charles and Harriet Renshaw reared a family of nine children in Rochester. Harriet Renshaw died in 1904, and Charles Renshaw died in 1909.  Both are buried at Mount Avon Cemetery.

At Home in Rochester: Thomas Jefferson Jones House

The house at 302 Walnut Street currently occupied by the Peppertree clothing boutique has stood at the corner of Third and Walnut for approximately 144 years. Tax and deed records indicate that the house was likely built in 1868 as the family residence of a carpenter named Thomas Jefferson Jones, who had purchased the lot from the heirs of the late John F. Hamlin. Jones was born in New York state in 1828, and came to Oakland County with his family when he was about seven years old. He married Phoebe Delight Collins in 1854 and the couple had three children, the youngest of whom, Anna, may have been born in the Walnut Street house in 1868. (Anna later became the wife of Commodore George Newberry).

The Jones family lived in the house until 1873, and then it was purchased by Henry Marshall Look. H. M. Look was a deacon of the Congregational church, and had served as probate judge of Oakland County under territorial government, as justice of the peace of Avon Township, and very briefly, as president of the Village of Rochester. He lived at 302 Walnut until just before his death in 1887, and his heirs sold then sold the house to John Mackey Axford, who owned it until 1903.  In the first half of the twentieth century, the house was the residence of Eva Banghart Gunn and her family, from about 1920 until 1954.  After the death of Eva Gunn, 302 Walnut Street made the transition from a private residence to an office building, as by that time there was already development pressure on Walnut Street to expand the downtown business district.

In the early 1960s, 302 Walnut was the home of the Rochester X-Ray Center, operated by Dr. Otis W. Schorling. A medical lab business also occupied part of the space.  In those days, Crittenton Hospital had not been built yet;  Rochester was being served only by a tiny osteopathic clinic on South Hill, so before the Rochester X-Ray Center opened, most citizens had to travel to Pontiac for diagnostic testing.

The X-Ray Center closed in early 1964, and the house eventually became a retail location. Since 1984, the Thomas Jefferson Jones house has been the home of the Peppertree women's clothing boutique.

Old News That's New Again: Oil Drilling

(Clarion photo by Leslie Palmitier, 1976)

Recent news that the Jordan Development Company of Traverse City is seeking leases in Rochester Hills to conduct exploratory drilling for oil reserves has caught the attention of our citizens, but as one Remembering Rochester reader reminded me, this topic is really old news.

Back in 1976-1978, as a reaction to the 1973 oil crisis, independent drilling companies stepped up their efforts to locate fossil fuel resources in Michigan, and Avon and Oakland Townships were included in their explorations.  In April 1976, Reef Petroleum Corporation of Traverse City drilled a test well at the corner of Rochester and Gunn roads in Oakland Township; they were issued a permit to drill as far as 4,050 feet into a pinnacle reef formation known as the Niagaran reef (see the Clarion photo from 1976, at left).  The well, designated Axford 1-22, quickly proved to be a dry hole and was immediately plugged. Two years later, Reef Petroleum was granted another permit to drill a gas well designated Dillman 3-1 in section 1 of Avon Township (now Rochester Hills), at a location about 400 feet west of Winkler Mill Road. Dillman 3-1 was drilled to a depth of about 3,600 feet and was eventually designated a dry hole after producing very little gas; it was plugged in 1979. Although Reef Petroleum was not successful with these two wells, they did drill a group of wells in nearby Addison Township that produced both gas and oil. Overall, in the 1970s Michigan oil companies drilled a total of 4,935 holes resulting in 1,174 oil wells, 475 natural gas wells, 2,610 dry holes and 676 service wells.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality produced a map that shows the location of all of the active and inactive well units lying within Oakland County. This maps shows a cluster of well units in the northeast corner of Rochester Hills (look at T3N,11E).

If you are interested in the topic of oil and gas wells in Michigan, there is a wealth of information available from the web site of the Clarke Historical Library, as well as from the Department of Environmental Quality's GeoWebFace site.

This Month in Rochester History

 (Courtesy of Marjorie and the late Walter Dernier)

Half a century ago this month, the eyes of Rochester's citizens were focused on Main Street - specifically upon the southwest corner of Main and University Drive, where stood the aging and forlorn St. James Hotel. After months of legal wrangling with the heirs of Lottie Smith, the widow of hotel proprietor James W. Smith, a consent agreement was reached to allow the village to raze the building.  The struggle had taken up much of the village council members' time, as they contemplated initiating condemnation proceedings in order to see the old building removed.  With the matter settled in court on November 29, 1962, the village was able to proceed with demolition of the hotel in early December 1962. The accompanying photo shows how the building looked just before it was torn down.

At Home in Rochester: Cyrus and Laura Reimer House

Reimer/Fisher house ca.1957 (Swords Family Archive)

This grand house was built at 1690 S. Rochester Road (west side of the road, south of Avon) in 1922 for Cyrus Reimer and his second wife, Laura Clough Reimer. Cyrus Reimer, who was born in 1854 in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, had been a hardware merchant in Rochester, operating the store founded by his father, Joseph Reimer, which he later sold to Harvey J. Taylor. (Taylor, in turn, sold the store to Charles W. Case and it later became known as Case's Hardware). Cyrus Reimer became a traveling hardware salesmen for the Buhl company of Detroit, and also operated a hardware store in Owosso, Michigan, before settling in Cleveland, where he was sales manager for the American Fork and Hoe Company. 

In retirement, Cyrus decided to return to the Rochester area. The Pontiac Daily Press reported in March 1922:

The contract has been let for a fine residence for Cyrus Reimer, to be built on his farm, one and one half miles south of Rochester. Mr. Reimer was formerly a Rochester resident, but has made his home in Cleveland for the last 15 years.

Unfortunately, Cyrus Reimer died just over a year after this announcement was published, so he probably spent very little time enjoying his new house south of Rochester.  Two years later his widow sold the property, as revealed by this item from the Rochester Clarion of April 17, 1925:

William A. Fisher, president of the Fisher Body Works, of Detroit, has purchased the palatial farm home of Mrs. Laura Reimer, one and one-fourth miles south of Rochester on the Rochester pavement. Ward Carey has been engaged as overseer of the farm and will occupy the house, while George Stewart will occupy the tenant house vacated by George Ahrens.

Fisher's name is the one that is most associated with this house, as he owned it for a much longer span of time that the Reimers.  One of the famed brothers who founded the Fisher Body Company that later became a division of General Motors, William A. Fisher used his Avon Township home as a summer getaway and weekend retreat, while living the rest of the time at his primary residence in the Boston-Edison district of Detroit. His Avon Township property was a large parcel in section 22, and he employed local people to farm it for him.

The Fisher property was sold to the Mount Elliott Cemetery Association in 1951, but plans to develop a cemetery on the property never left the drawing board. Instead, the property was sold for development to the Winchester Association in 1969.  About that time, the Reimer/Fisher house was moved west across the fields to a lot on Crestline Street, in the Bogart's Place subdivision plat, which is where it stands today.

To learn more about the Cyrus Reimer house, visit the Oakland Regional Historic Sites record for this property.

Thanks to Melanie and Janet Swords for sharing this image from the Swords Family Archive.

Romney in Rochester Revisited

(Courtesy of Steve Cypher)

After reading my earlier blog post about George Romney's campaign visit to Rochester fifty years ago this month, Remembering Rochester reader Steve Cypher contacted me to share this image from his personal family photo archive.  The photo was taken with gubernatorial candidate George Romney on Main Street, Rochester, on October 11, 1962. Pictured from left to right are Larry Foss, George Romney, John Cypher, Steve Cypher and Ginny Foss. Betty Slazinski is driving the car (for the auto fans, Steve says that's a Fiat 1200 Sport Spyder).  Mitzelfeld's and Holland Florist can be seen in the background of the photo.

My thanks to Steve Cypher for sharing this bit of Rochester history.

Rochester on the Road: Photoflash Flares

If you ever find yourself visiting the National Museum of the U. S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, you'll find a connection to Rochester, Michigan in this exhibit from the museum's World War II gallery.  Here is displayed an example of the AN-M26 photoflash flare, which was dropped from airplanes to provide illumination for nighttime bombing missions, or to aid aerial photography.

These flares descended toward their targets on a parachute, which allowed them to burn for about three minutes over the area to be illuminated. They produced about 800,000 candlepower.  The AN-M26 device was 50 inches long and about eight inches in diameter, weighing 52 pounds. Fourteen pounds of that weight was flare charge.

McAleer Manufacturing Company, located  at the time in Rochester at Fourth and Water streets in the building we know today as the Rochester Mills Beer Company, had government defense contracts to build these flares. Thousands of the devices were built, tested and shipped from Rochester to aid the war effort. Mixing and testing of the explosive powders used in these and other McAleer munitions resulted in the injury or death of several McAleer employees.

Vanished Rochester: Winkler Mill

Winkler Mill, August 1923

In 1825, pioneer settler John Hersey built a grist mill northeast of the emerging settlement of Stoney Creek, establishing one of the earliest industries in what would become Avon Township.  Captain William Price, a pioneer of Washington Township in adjacent Macomb County, bought the Hersey property, including the mill, in 1837. As proprietor of the former Hersey mill, Capt. Price was credited with grinding the first barrel of superfine flour in Oakland County.

William Price died in 1857, and his heirs eventually sold the mill near Stoney Creek to a German immigrant named Joseph Winkler, Winkler operated the mill for half a century, from 1870 until 1920, and it is by his name that the mill property has been known ever since.

A succession of owners followed Joseph Winkler, but the building had by then seen its last days as a working grist mill.  In 1968, a Michigan historical marker was placed at the mill, recognizing it as a relic of Avon Township's era of exploration and settlement.  To the sadness of the community, the historic structure was completely destroyed by fire in the summer of 1985. The Michigan historical marker that once stood at the site was removed to the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm.

This Month in Rochester History

Campaign season was in full swing in Rochester fifty years ago this month. On October 11, 1962, the Romney campaign swept into town for a hand-shaking stop.  Republican gubernatorial candidate George W. Romney stood outside the gate of National Twist Drill at Tienken and Rochester at the 3:30 p.m. quitting time, asking workers departing the plant at the close of their shift to support him in his race against incumbent governor John B. Swainson.  After leaving Twist Drill, Romney visited downtown Rochester and walked through Mitzelfeld's and most of the other Main Street businesses, greeting customers and clerks and asking them for their votes in the upcoming November election.

Romney defeated Swainson in the 1962 general election and served as Michigan's governor from 1963 to 1969. (For those of you who are students of American political history, click here to view a film clip of George Romney's announcement of his candidacy for Michigan governor.)

The Horvitz Connection

Horvitz building renovation (David Gifford)

Recently, as the Horvitz building at 301 S. Main has been stripped of its faux front, interest in the structure's history has been renewed.  We know that a dry goods merchant named Burnett A. Horvitz built the store in late 1888, but this week I decided to find out what I could about Mr. Horvitz and his personal story. An 1891 biography reveals that B. A. Horvitz was born in Russia in 1859 and that he and his family fled to America in 1869 to escape the persecution of Jews that was occurring at the time. Burnett "Barney" Horvitz then became a traveling salesman, and during a stop in Rochester in 1880 he decided to make his home here. He built his new store on Main Street in 1888 and in 1893 he married Gertrude C. Straus of Detroit.  The couple had two children, both born in Rochester: a son, Gerald Joseph Horvitz, and a daughter, Florence M. Horvitz.  The Horvitz children were reared in Rochester until about 1907, at which time B. A. Horvitz moved his family to Detroit.

Gerald Horvitz went on to attend the University of Michigan and was graduated with the class of 1916. He moved to New York and became a scientist and researcher of some note, specializing in chemistry and metallurgical engineering. Horvitz served as president of the New York Testing Laboratories and was engaged in highly classified research during the early 1940s.  His daughter, Betty Slegman, herself a U of M graduate and one of the first women journalists to work for United Press,  recalled that her father would never talk about his work, but expressed irritation at the number of security people who were hanging around his laboratory.  It was only after the surrender of Japan ended World War II that Betty found out that her father had been one of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project, and that his specific role had been to develop a key component of the trigger mechanism of the atomic bomb.

Main Street Stories: 327 S. Main

Around 1900, Rochester jeweler Theodor Dahlmann built a store to house his business at 327 S. Main. This property remained in the Dahlman family until 1936, when Theo Dahlmann's heirs sold it to Lyle "Red" Knapp. Knapp opened a restaurant and bar there, known simply as "Knapp's" (and not to be confused with Knapp's Dairy Bar, another of his businesses which opened on the opposite side of the street in 1950). Knapp's restaurant and bar was a Main Street landmark until 1976, when the property was sold to Clarence Kavan of Grosse Pointe.  Kavan, having an entirely different restaurant in mind, had the existing building razed completely, and planned a brand-new building to be constructed atop the old foundation.

As construction on the restaurant continued, Rochester residents were introduced in December 1976 to a new feature on Main Street.  The front of the new Kavan's Colony East restaurant was decorated with two large figures sculpted of wood, leaning on a table over the doorway that was the main entrance to the eatery.  The larger-than-life oak carving was familiar to Detroiters, as it had graced the front of the old Brass Rail bar on Grand Circus Park for many years. After the demise of the Brass Rail, the carving lay in storage until Clarence Kavan acquired it for his new restaurant in Rochester.

The carving is the design of Joseph Freedman, who was one of the partners in the Brass Rail bar. It was executed by the firm of noted Detroit sculptor Joachim Jungwirth, whose company of architectural modelers and wood carvers was very prominent in Detroit. Jungwirth was a talented Austrian wood carver and was the father of sculptor Leonard D. Jungwirth, who created the famous "Sparty" statue at Michigan State University, and also created a bas relief mural at Rochester High School (now hanging in the Harrison Room of the school administration building).  Joseph Freedman patented his design for the sculpture to adorn the bar's entrance in 1940.  The drawing filed with his patent application is shown here.

Kavan's Colony East opened its doors to Rochester patrons in February 1977, and lasted until about 1980, when the restaurant's name was briefly changed to Main Street bar and grille.  The Kruse and Muer organization bought it in 1989.  Names and owners may have changed in the 35 years since the carving was installed, but it has now become an immovable fixture and a noted Rochester landmark. The next time you visit Kruse and Muer on Main, note the initials "BR"  (for Brass Rail) carved in the boot heel of one of the men.

Vanished Rochester: Neely Roller Mill

The Neely mill on Paint Creek in 1907

The Neely Roller Mill stood on the banks of Paint Creek at the north end of Main Street, near the site of today's Rochester Athletic Club.  According to a Detroit Free Press account, the mill was built in the fall of 1868. Doctors Jesse and Jeremiah Wilson were the proprietors for the first eight years, during which the enterprise was known as the Eureka Mills.  The Wilsons then sold the mill, and it was acquired in 1896 by Thomas Edward Neely, who improved the machinery and produced the Vigilant brand of flour there.

Trouble erupted after the Detroit Sugar Company built a large sugar beet processing plant upstream on Paint Creek in 1899. In 1903, Neely sued Detroit Sugar for damages, claiming that the beet pulp discharged by the plant impeded the supply of water to his mill. The Free Press reported on May 17, 1903:

Neeley asks $15,000 alleging that the sugar company has thrown lime, dirt, sand, refuse, beets and beet tops into Paint Creek until his mill pond is diminished in size fully one-half and his race is filled from three to five feet deep.  Neeley sets up that his loss has been from $3,000 to $5,000 per year since the sugar factory was erected and says the value of the flour mill is $10,000.

Neely was awarded slightly more than $2,000 in damages, and Detroit Sugar soon thereafter closed its Rochester facility due to a perfect storm of economic woes.  A few years later, in 1908, there was more litigation revolving around water rights on Paint Creek. This time, Neely sued Western Knitting Mills, claiming that when WKM built its new dam, the water level in Neely's tail race had been raised, destroying his water power.  Neely was awarded $2,800 by the jury, but WKM appealed. In 1909, the appeals court required WKM to accept a lower award of $1,800 or opt for a new trial, but by that time Neely had already sold the property and moved to Armada in northern Macomb County. The mill building and equipment was sold to Lapeer men, who dismantled the mill in late 1908. Neely continued in the milling business in Armada and died there in 1931.

In 1997, when construction crews were working on the pedestrian walk along Paint Creek, they discovered remnants of the Neely mill, including some of the wood from the foundation of the water wheel.

This Month in Rochester History

This month in 1962, the citizens of Rochester were marking the retirement of Fire Chief George J. Ross, Sr. Chief Ross had come to the close of a 39-year career with the department; the last 28 of those years were served as chief.  When Ross joined the RFD in 1923, it was an all-volunteer force, but in 1951, the Village Council made the fire chief a full-time employee of the village.  Upon Chief Ross's retirement, assistant chief Lyle O. Buchanan was named fire chief, and served in that capacity for the next 20 years.  Chief Ross told the Rochester Clarion that he planned to spend his retirement relaxing around the house, but didn't rule out the possibility that when he heard the siren blowing, he might just go out to "take a look" at the fire.

The Day the World Came to Rochester

Early 20th century view of a track gang at work on the MCRR

Yesterday, August 24, was the 140th anniversary of the day that the world came to Rochester. For it was on that very date in the year 1872 that the first locomotive rolled into town on the newly laid tracks of the Detroit and Bay City Railway.

Before the D. & B.C. (later Michigan Central - or M.C.R.R.) came to town, the village of Rochester was isolated from the outside world. No telephone or telegraph lines existed to link the town to other communities. There was no local newspaper. The mail came by stage or horse and rider. Travel to any outside destination was accomplished on foot or by horse-drawn vehicle over plank roads or dirt wagon traces and was usually a multi-day excursion.  The arrival of the first railroad to serve the village and surrounding township was, therefore, a game-changer. Citizens of Rochester and Avon could now travel easily to major transportation hubs, ship farm products to market, and receive the world's news in a timely fashion.  They were no longer residents of an isolated outpost.

The excitement of the townspeople as the locomotive approached was palpable. We know this because we are fortunate to have preserved in our history an eyewitness account of the event.  The story was related by Olive Hamlin Burbank, a pioneer resident of Avon Township, whose recollections were recorded for us by Fidelia Wooley Gillette, a well-known Universalist minister and prolific writer.  From Fidelia Gillette's pen, we have this account of the watershed day as told by Olive Burbank just days before her death:

On the 24th of August, 1872, there sounded through Olive Burbank's house a strange unknown cry, - the voice of one of her children calling, "Mother, Father, the locomotive will soon be here," and then the aged couple hurried out with their children, and sitting side by side in the pleasant yard, kept watch amid the ringing of bells and the roar of cannon, and the shouts of the rejoicing villagers; for the first train of cars on the Detroit & Bay City railroad, down the hill and beyond the creek, slowly, slowly up the glen, and on the border of what was once to have been  "the great raging canal," slowly along the valley and between the hills came the new engine, drawing after it the construction train; slowly, slowly over the new track, and the yet unballasted road, where once this aged pair had seen only the unbroken forest, with its Indian trail. And now, at the last Olive Burbank knew that the home of her adoption, the little wild-wood village, dear to her heart for fifty years, was linked to the great, surging outside world.

Imagine the wonder of the aged Olive Burbank, who had come to the Rochester area with the earliest settlers and carved a home out of the wilderness, to see that locomotive engine coming through town!

Rochester On The Road: Bockscar

(National Museum of the Air Force, Dayton OH)

This installment of Rochester on the Road takes us to the National Museum of the Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.  One of the historic aircraft on display there is this B-29 Superfortress, nicknamed Bockscar. The airplane is well known as the one used in the atomic bomb strike on Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945, and it has a connection to Rochester, Michigan through one of its crew members.

In August of 1945, a Rochester man named Roderick F. Arnold was serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces as a B-29 flight engineer, and was stationed on the Pacific island of Tinian where preparations were underway for the atomic strikes against Japan. Rod Arnold was assigned as a crew member aboard this aircraft, which had been named Bockscar for its pilot, Capt. Fred Bock. When the Hiroshima raid failed to force the immediate surrender of Japan and a second raid was ordered a few days later, it was determined that the Great Artiste, the airplane normally assigned to the second strike commander, Maj. Charles Sweeney, could not be made ready to carry a weapon in time for the second mission because the bomber was still fitted out with the scientific monitoring instruments it had carried on the Hiroshima mission.  The problem was solved by switching aircraft: Maj. Sweeney and his crew would fly Bockscar as the bomber and Capt. Bock and his crew would fly the Great Artiste with the monitoring instrumentation.  That decision placed Rod Arnold on the Great Artiste, flying a chase mission behind Bockscar as the other airplane dropped the Nagasaki bomb.

Mercifully, the Nagasaki mission was the last atomic bomb strike by Allied forces; only a handful of men were eyewitnesses to this terrifying moment in history, and Rochester's Rod Arnold was one of them.

Bygone Business: Schoolcraft Drug Store

Photo courtesy of Swords Family Archive

A pharmacy business has been located in the Opera House block on the southeast corner of Fourth and Main streets continuously since the building was opened in 1890. One of those pharmacies was the Schoolcraft Drug Store, operated by Zeno Schoolcraft from 1928 to 1948.  The photo shown here was taken in 1947, just a year before Schoolcraft sold the business to T. Kenneth Fetters.

The Schoolcraft Drug Store featured a soda fountain, as was common at the time.  A story in the Rochester Clarion from the issue of June 1, 1928 tells us that Schoolcraft's fountain offered a superior malted milk concoction that was far better than what could be had elsewhere; the newspaper reported that visitors from across the region were stopping in at the Rochester store in hopes of discovering the secret recipe of Zeno Schoolcraft's malted milk beverage.

In addition to developing a popular malted milk recipe, Zeno Schoolcraft invented two devices that were granted United States patents. Both item were designed to be of interest to merchants: one was a shelf label holder, and the other was a display box for confectionary products.

Rochester On The Road: Deats Gravesite

Deats monument in Church Hill Cemetery, PA

This new occasional series, Rochester On The Road, will look at connections to the history of the Rochester area that may be found in other cities and states across the country.  Today's inaugural post in the series is a visit to the gravesite of Harriet "Hattie" Sprague and her husband, Dr. William Deats.

William and Hattie Deats are buried in Church Hill Cemetery in Martin's Creek, Northampton County, Pennsylvania.  Dr. Deats was born in Northampton County in 1847 and earned degrees from nearby Lafayette College and Jefferson Medical College before coming to Rochester in 1878 to establish a medical practice. While in Rochester, he married Harriet "Hattie" Sprague, the daughter of Rollin Sprague, who built the Home Bakery building.  Dr. Deats then built the beautiful Eastlake Victorian house at 302 W. University as the couple's marital home.  Only a few years later, Dr. Deats decided to move back to his native Pennsylvania, where he practiced medicine for the remainder of his life.  Hattie Deats died of typhoid fever in 1889, not long after the Deats family returned to Northampton County.  Dr. Deats himself died of kidney disease in 1891, leaving the couple's only daughter, Grace, an orphan.  Grace Deats then returned to Michigan to live with family members.

Church Hill Cemetery in Northampton County has other associations to Rochester history as well.  A number of families from the Northampton area migrated to Rochester in the mid-19th century, so other Rochester surnames are represented in the cemetery, including the Butz/Butts, Fangboner and Ross families.

This Month in Rochester History

Fifty years ago this month, a party in the Brooklands area of Avon Township made the pages of the local newspaper. Esther and Abel Jablway, fondly known to their customers as "Mom and Pop," invited all of their customers to a party at their neighborhood grocery store at 1744 East Auburn in the Brooklands subdivision. Grateful for the warm reception they had received when they had relocated from Detroit four years earlier, the couple wanted to do something to thank their customers, so they gave away 2,500 hot dogs and almost 3,000 bottles of pop to all of the neighborhood kids and their families and friends. So many people came out to celebrate with the Jablways that the firefighters from the Brooklands fire station across the street helped with the hot dogs and the Oakland County Sheriff's Department was needed to direct traffic in the area.

The Jablway neighborhood store was an institution in Brooklands for a generation.  Abel Jablway died in 1971 and his wife, Esther, died a decade later in 1981.

Subdivision Stories: Campbell Addition

The Campbell Addition to the village of Rochester was platted in the spring of 1900 on land formerly owned by Alexander F. Campbell, lying south of First Street and north of the Clinton River. His apparent widow, Esther J. Atkinson Campbell, who had married William J. Fraser in 1897, divided the seven-acre parcel into lots and placed them on the market through the local real estate office of E. R. Frank.  The streets in the Campbell addition all bear family names connected to Esther J. Campbell-Fraser; they are Campbell, after her first husband; Fraser, after her second husband; and Hiel, after her son born during her first marriage, whose name was Hiel R. Campbell.

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.