Quick Facts

NPS Description

111 East Broadway Street. C. H. Thompson Block, ca. 1906. 

Contributing 

Description

Commercial Late Victorian two-and-a-half-story retail/mixed use building with retail on the first floor and apartments on the second. The upper façade is of red brick with two rows of dentil molding under the decorative metal cornice and a rusticated stone string course below the second-story windows. The cornice is decorated with dentils, brackets with rosettes, and a name block framed by two extending brackets above the cornice. The name block contains the name C. H. Thompson. A rusticated stone sill with brick corbelling is under the half story square window and a brick arch above. The second-story windows are aluminum replacement double-hung windows with transoms and projecting metal lintels. The storefront is wood and glass with a projecting fabric awning and metal cornice. A side door on the east end leads into the second-floor apartments and has a projecting fabric awning. 

The north (rear) elevation is faced in painted wood siding and has replacement windows. A one-story addition with painted wood siding and aluminum and glass back entry is on the rear elevation. No other exterior elevations are visible due to adjoining buildings. 

The interior retains a tin ceiling and metal cornice crown molding. 

History 

The C. H. Thompson block was probably constructed in the summer of 1906. It replaced a two-story frame building that post-dated the 1875 fire and was itself consumed in a fire in February 1906. In an article describing the fire, the Isabella County Enterprise noted that the previous building was “occupied by one of the most despicable dives in the city…how a fire caught in a saloon at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon has not been explained.” It went on to note that “C. H. Thompson, the owner of the property, is sick in bed, but F. H. Dusenbury says that undoubtedly a new brick building will enclose the space this summer.”6 In 1910 it was a bakery/confectionery shop, with a portable oven at the rear. From 1925 to 1944, it was the Larsen’s Style Shop, then Gittleman’s Style Shop from 1945 to the 1950s. Acme Quality Paint, Inc. was in the building from 1958 to 1985; after several vacant years, it became Data Erase and then later Computer Consignments in the early 1990s. It currently houses Art Reach on Broadway. 

Integrity Analysis 

This building appears much the same as it did when it was constructed, including the decorative cornice with name block in the center, brickwork and stone trim. The windows are replacement, but mimic the original configuration of one-over-one double-hungs with transoms. The storefront has undergone some changes but is currently in a wood and glass configuration that is similar to the historic storefront. 

Sources 

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps (Mt. Pleasant: 1884, 1890, 1895, 1900, 1910, 1924, 1931, 1950); Mt. Pleasant City Directories, 1925-1998; Past and Present of Isabella County, 1911; City of Mt. Pleasant Building Permits; historic photographs. 

6 “Two Fires,” Isabella County Enterprise, February 23, 1906, p. 1.