Quick Facts

Built between 1906 and 1910 as a large double-lot dry goods shop, this building served as Mt. Pleasant’s J.C. Penney store for over 40 years (from around 1932 to 1975). 

Early 1910 Sanborn fire insurance maps note that the interior was engineered with structural iron columns and featured a classic decorative pressed metal ceiling to support its double-wide footprint. 

If you look at the upper facade, you can see distinct oval-shaped windows on the top half-story framed by detailed brickwork, a hallmark design feature of the building that survived multiple storefront renovations below. 

NPS Description

114 East Broadway Street. J. C. Penney Company Store, ca. 1910. 

Contributing 

Description

Neoclassical two-and-a-half-story professional building. The 44 foot frontage on East Broadway Street has a brick upper façade with a second-story string course and a pier with capitol on the west end capped by a painted decorative cornice with brackets, modillions, and denticulation. Decorative brickwork surrounds the oval windows on the half story. Keystones cap the second story aluminum replacement windows with their transoms and continuous sill. The storefront is a newer red brick with a random ashlar stone block frieze above the first floor. A recessed entry in the center bay has a wood door with a wood surround. The entry is flanked by two fixed windows to each side with flower boxes below and topped with a fabric awning hung flush to the exterior façade. 

The south (rear) elevation is covered in EIFS panels and has replacement windows and entry. The west elevation is also covered in EIFS panels. No other exterior elevation is visible due to adjoining buildings. 

History 

Constructed between 1906 and 1910, this double lot brick building served downtown for over 40 years as the J. C. Penney Company store (ca. 1932-1975). The 1910 Sanborn map lists it as a dry goods store with iron columns and a metal ceiling in the interior. In the 1970s and 1980s, it held the Youth Fountain shop and a toy store, and in the early 1990s there was a Benetton store and Mountain Town Ski and Bike shop. The Mt. Pleasant Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau were tenants in the 1990s. The current tenant, Northwestern Mutual Life, has had a presence in the building since the 1980s. 

Integrity Analysis 

The building appears to have remained relatively intact throughout the 1950s, aside from alterations to the storefront (the original configuration has not been determined). The storefront was infilled with brick between 1988 and 1993, and a stone veneer was added to the frieze band above the storefront in recent years. The original second-floor windows were large plate glass units with three-light transoms above; these were replaced between 1988 and 1993 with triple unit double-hung windows with transoms within the original openings. The original cornice is intact but the projecting brick parapet with date plate above is now missing. The rear elevation is covered with EIFS. 

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.