Quick Facts

NPS Description

114 West Michigan, ca. early 1890s 

Non-contributing (built within the period of significance but subsequent alterations have sufficiently impacted integrity to render it non-contributing) 

Description

112 West Michigan now encompasses two formerly separate buildings, 112 and 114 West Michigan. The buildings are listed as separate entries as 112 remains a contributing building while 114 is non-contributing. 

The former 114 West Michigan is a two-story gable-roofed wood framed structure. The south elevation (main façade) has a two-story “false front.” It is faced with brick and clapboard siding at the first floor and with asphalt shingles laid to look like brick at the second floor. The first floor has a recessed entry with steel double doors and a second-floor exterior entry door at the west end. The second floor has three square-head windows with double-hung aluminum replacement units. The false front is capped by a slightly projecting metal cornice. The first floor is not visible on the east, north and west elevations due to adjoining buildings. The second floor on those elevations is clad with asbestos siding. On the east elevation there are two wood double-hung windows. On the north elevation there are two wood double-hung windows and one fixed-pane window. The west elevation is not visible due to the adjoining building. The roof is clad in asphalt shingles. There is a small one-story addition at the north end; it is clad in asphalt shingles and the north elevation (the only visible one) has a steel entry door, another door opening that has been boarded up, and a 12-paned wood window. 

History 

The previous building on this site as shown on Sanborn maps was a one-story frame building with a two-story frame addition to the north labeled as a warehouse. This appears to have been removed and replaced by the present building, a two-story wood framed building, in the early 1890s. It is listed in 1895 as an office and warehouse, in 1900 as a tin shop, in 1910 as a plumbing shop, and in 1924 as an auto repair shop. A historic image in William Cron’s Mount Pleasant: 1854 to 1954 shows the Maxwell Blacksmith shop and identifies it as being on Washington Street. However, the same image shows B. R. Gillett’s Upholstery Shop at 114 West Michigan; this is confirmed by a listing for the Gillett Trim Shop at 114 in the city directories from 1924 to 1934, as well as the 1931 Sanborn map listing 114 as “auto repair and upholstering” suggesting that the image has been misidentified. Tenants after the Gillett Trim Shop included Vanderbrock Bros. (1936), Central State Dry Cleaners (1939-40), Al’s Barber Shop (1941-1946), D. P. Young Jeweler (1947-48), and the McGregor News Agency (1949-1960). The linking of 112 and 114 appears to have occurred in the 1960s, as the M&M Bar (sometimes listed at 112) is occasionally listed here and then the address disappears. 

Integrity Analysis 

The image in Mount Pleasant: 1854-1954 is not clearly dated; it is implied that it is around 1876 but since the two-story building at 114 was not constructed until the 1890s, it likely dates from the late 1890s or early 1900s. At 114, it shows a two-story, gable-roofed, wood-framed building with a clapboard-sided false front. It had two large barn doors in the center of the first floor, flanked by a small door to the east and two double-hung windows to the west. Upstairs were two double hung two-over-two wood windows flanking a central door opening. There was simple wood trim around the windows and doors and a projecting cornice. While the general outlines of the original building are still visible (double door opening on first floor storefront, fenestration pattern on the second story), little original material is still present on the exterior, having been replaced with asphalt shingles and asbestos siding. 

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.