Quick Facts

NPS Description

220 East Broadway Street. Snow White Bakery, ca. 1910s. 

Contributing 

Description

Two-story Commercial Brick retail/mixed used building. Stan’s Restaurant occupies the first floor with an apartment on the second floor. The 22 foot frontage on East Broadway Street is painted brick on the second floor with three vinyl replacement windows and a projecting porch with a half hipped asphalt shingle roof and metal posts and balustrade. The storefront is brick covered in aluminum vertical siding. An aluminum and glass display window is between the aluminum and glass restaurant entry door to the west and the metal door into the apartment on the east. Shutters flank both sides of the fixed window with a rectangular white strip underneath. A wall lantern is fixed to the west of the fixed window along with two other lanterns on the second story in between the replacement windows. 

The south (rear) elevation is covered in stucco. It has four shallow-arched windows with double-hung replacement vinyl sash. There is a one-story brick rear extension with a back entry into the restaurant through the kitchen. No other exterior elevation is visible due to adjoining buildings. 

History 

Although there had been a one story frame building on this lot in the 1880s, it was empty in the late 1890s and early 1900s. In 1910, there was a small one story shed sandwiched between the buildings to either side. Between 1910 and 1924, a two-story, 24 foot brick building was constructed on this lot. The Snow White Bakery was located here from the 1920s to early 1940s, and Sanborn maps from the period show an iron oven in the building; the 1931 map also notes there was a lodge hall in the second story. From 1943 to 1948 it was the Coral Grill restaurant, and from 1940 to the mid 1960s it was Paul’s Famous Restaurant. It has been Stanley’s Famous Restaurant since the mid 1960s. 

Integrity Analysis 

The building’s plain appearance is typical of the early twentieth-century commercial buildings in Mt. Pleasant. It is a simple, two-story brick building. It does not appear that it ever had a decorative cornice. The windows were also simple, rectangular wood double-hungs, which have now been replaced. The storefront appears to be a similar configuration to the original, although the materials have changed to glass and aluminum. A projecting porch has been added to the second floor, probably in the 1970s. 

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.