Quick Facts

NPS Description

129-131 East Broadway Street. Devereaux Block, ca. 1900. 

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

Description

Two-story brick professional office building with a 44 foot frontage on East Broadway Street. The façade is split down the middle by a projecting three sided clock structure with cross-gabled roof and brackets underneath. Brick paneled piers extend below the projecting clock to ground level. The upper façade is covered in EIFS with a denticulated frieze and a string course under the second-story windows. Double-hung aluminum replacement windows with green metal box awnings above each window make up the fenestration on the second floor. The storefront has aluminum and glass fixed windows with decorative wood panels underneath, brick paneled piers, and a green metal box awning over each half separated by the brick paneled piers under the projecting clock. Between the two-story brick paneled piers are two aluminum and glass fixed windows, one atop the other. 

The north (rear) elevation is a one-story addition covered in EIFS. The east and west (side) elevations are not visible due to adjoining buildings. 

History 

This two-storefront long building constituted the second and third storefronts from the west of the six-storefront long Devereaux Block which extends from 125 to 137 East Broadway (see History under 125 East Broadway, above). The addresses in this part of the Devereaux Block were variously listed as 127, 129, and 131. In the early 1900s, the west half (127) was a grocery operated under several names (C. F. Marsh, Huber’s, Simond’s) while the east half had a drug and stationery store. The Economy 5 and 10 Cent Store occupied the east half (131) starting in 1934; it eventually would take over the west half as well. In 1963 it changed names to Gay’s 5 and 10 Cent Store and then became the D&C Stores in 1982, which it remained into the 1990s. Upstairs, there were a number of long term tenants, including the firm of Meyers, Cooper and Watson and the General Agency, both of which kept offices there from the 1920s into the 1950s. The building is currently occupied by the professional offices of Isabella Bank and Trust. 

Integrity Analysis 

Unlike the next door section at 125 East Broadway, the original window openings at the second floor appear to have remained intact into the 1990s. A storefront remodel was referenced in 1971 city building permits. After 1991 the upper façade was covered with EIFS and the transom windows removed or covered and new windows installed. The storefronts were remodeled with brick and the doorway at 127 and the stair entry to the second story was replaced with windows. 

Sources 

Isabella County Enterprise March 22, 1895, p. 1; 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.