1977 50th Anniversary for Fowlerville Lumber

In another update on information for the Fowlerville Lumber Company, following are a picture and article published in the Press & Argus, written by Steve Horton, who now pubishes the Fowlerville News & Views:

 



Thank you, again, to one of my readers for providing all of this wonderful information.

1955 Fowlerville Lumber

In the mid-1900s, the Fowlerville Lumber won awards for being the cleanest yard -- following is the article published in the State Journal and also in the Howell paper:

And, the Zimmermans were awarded "Businessmen of the Month."

 

All of these articles are from one of my readers -- thank you for sending this information so we can share it!

 

Some more updates tomorrow on the lumber yard when they celebrated their 50th anniversary.

1965 Houses on West Grand River

While one of my readers and I toured the village, he spoke about three of the houses from the northwest corner of Detroit street and West Grand River avenue westward.  In the mid-1960s, the corner house (first picture) was the home of Harry Blank.  It was a jeweler in the early part of the 1900s and, at one time, had his store located in the Harmon building.  One of the memories offered up concerned goldfish.  Mr. Blank had large tubs of goldfish which, once winter approached, he would move to the basement of this house.

The second house, many may remember, was the original location of the Liverance Funeral Home, before the Liverances purchased the old S.L. Bignall house at the southeast corner of Church street and South Grand, now the village offices. 

The third house shown was the home of Inez and Fritz Kunde in the mid-1960s.  Inez was an employee of Frank Utter in Utter's Menswear store and Fritz was a finish carpenter.  When widow Inez passed away, she willed the house to the Utters. 

Over the next few days, I will be doing some additional updates from e-mails and then will get back to my tour around town with one of my readers.

1965 West Grand River

More reader's memories:

~~At the corner of North Ann and West Grand River, a Western Oil/Mobile gas station called the Flying Red Horse stood for many years.  Merle Stowe was the owner and Admiral MacKenzie was an employee -- anyone remember them?  Filling a car sounds interesting.  A large glass ball would be filled up by hand-pumping the gas, then the fuel would be released and drained into a container or car.

~~After World War II, in 1946, Cecil Lepard building a new building to sell Chevrolets (current-day picture of building below).  He would use one side of the building and the other side was the Dixie Inn, run by Fernon Gillis.  According to this reader, the Dixie Inn served the best country-fried chicken.

~~The restaurant also served as a truck-style stop.  Wholesale oil and gas was available, as well as oil changes were offered.  For the oil changes, a pit had been dug and created where the men would work below ground with the car above them.

~~The property along Veterans Drive (formerly Detroit Street) was mostly vacant in the early-to-mid-1900s.  By that time, the Commercial Club was quite active in the community and that organization owned quite a bit of the property along the then-Detroit Street.  To help encourage companies to relocate or start-up in the village, the club would offer a parcel of land at no cost as long as the company set up shop, ultimately employing local residents. 

More tomorrow, but on the north side of West Grand River Avenue.

1922 Township Hall

In 1922, the Sanborn & Company from Chicago surveyed a majority of the village and provided wonderful detail of the sizes of the buildings and how they were used at that time.  The southwest corner of Power Street and North Grand Avenue is what we will be looking at today.  Following is a portion of the surveyor map:

The portion of the map in pink at the upper right hand corner shows the fire department and public school rooms.  The white wooden schoolhouse had burned down the year before and a part of this three-story building was being used as classrooms.  The second floor was called the opera house. 

 

A yellow square at the back of the building indicates a room that no longer exists.  It used to be a wooden structure accessed from the second floor, with pillars supporting it to the ground.  At times this small room was used as a dressing or changing room for those using the opera house for plays, oratories, etc.   

If you drive or wander behind that building now, you can see evidence of how the back brick wall has been changed and patched over the years.

A couple more bits of interest now that we are looking at the map:

~~Dr. Lamoreaux's office was where you see the number 4 on North Grand Avenue.  On his window, he had had stencilled, "Chronic Disease a Specialty."

~~The garages indicated with "auto" no longer exist.

~~A.J. Beebe sold coal.  He lived on East Grand River in the Craftsman-style house just west of the Kennedy house.  By 1923, A.J. Beebe sold his interests and moved to California.  The following article was found in the local newspaper:

Mr. and Mrs. A.J. Beebe left Monday for their new home at Santa Anna, California.  They have resided in this village something like 40 years, during which time Mr. Beebe has been actively engaged in some business enterprise and it will seem strange to know that they have gone out from among us at their time of life, but they have spent a winter in California and are very much taken up with the climate there.

And then, they moved back to Fowlerville a year later.  No explanation in the newspaper.

1942 Haist House

With so much information being released from the 1940 United States Census, it is fun and interesting to do research on more of the long-time village residents.  In 1942, Nelson Fred Haist had to fill out a military registration card, even though it seemed rather unlikely he would have to serve in the armed forces during World War II as he was 61 years at the time.

Some of my updated information received from a long-time resident is that the building (now house) at the northwest corner of Power Street and North Grand Avenue was known as the Haist House.  In a 1922 surveyor's map, this information is shown:

In a 1930 census recording of the Haist family, Nelson Fred Haist was 49 years old and married to Maude, 42 years of age.  They had two sons, Arthur and Arist, ages 19 and 11 respectively, and one daughter, Edna, 18 years old.  Maude passed away October 29, 1975, while living in Howell, but I could not find anything on Nelson.

In the early 1900s, the feed barn and auto storage area shown on the map was quite possibly one of the ten-cent barns in the village.  Farmers and residents in outlying areas could travel into town then shelter their horses and wagons in a barn while shopping, visiting, and doing any other business.

Anytime you are interested in doing genealogy research, I would suggest www.familysearch.org.  It is an easy site to negotiate through and has quite a bit of information.  If anyone does know more of the Haist family, I would love for you to leave a comment or e-mail me.

1950 Albert Monaghan

As I furiously took notes down while having a conversation and breakfast with a long-time resident of Fowlerville, he spoke about one of the printers at The Fowlerville Review in the mid-1900s.  His name was Albert Monaghan (maybe spelled Monahon), a Scot.

If you pick up and read a copy of my book, Through the Eyes of a Country Editor, you can find out so much about that paper, especially from 1874-1929.  G.L. Adams loved to write about himself, his wife, his life, and his employees.  Albert must have come after that time as I don't remember seeing his name.

But anyhow, back to my reader's memory.  Albert worked the printer for the paper and lived not too far from the downtown area.  He would walk most days to and from work, but he did buy a car.  He owned a 1936 Pontiac and, according to my reader, this car never saw a drop a rain.  If the weather looked iffy, it stayed under cover.

Can you even begin to wonder how great that car must have looked never seeing some of Michigan's harsh weather?!?  Out of curiosity, I googled an image of a 1936 Pontiac.  Here's one picture I found:

If anyone remembers Albert, I would love to have you leave a comment or e-mail me directly and I'll add an update at some point.