Quick Facts

NPS Description

226 South Main Street, ca. 1940. 

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

Description

Commercial one-story masonry service station with an angled corner facing the intersection of West Illinois Street and South Main Street. The primary façade is covered in aluminum vertical siding and has two garage doors to the north and a fixed aluminum window to the south. At the angled southeast corner, a square tower projects upward covered in aluminum vertical siding. The angled corner under the tower is also covered in aluminum vertical siding with the entrance door of glass and aluminum and an aluminum siding covered pent roof awning. 

The south (side) elevation is also covered in aluminum vertical siding with one fixed aluminum window at the east end. The west (rear) elevation is covered in aluminum vertical siding with a garage door and a one-story aluminum siding-covered addition to the north. The north (side) elevation is not visible due to adjoining buildings. 

History 

A residential dwelling was located on this corner into the 1920s. Around 1930, a gas station was built here. It was the C. M. Hall Gas Station during the 1930s. City directories have no listings for this address in the 1940s and early 1950s. In the late 1950s it was listed as the Pure Oil Company. It has been Sandel’s Service Center since 1960. 

Integrity Analysis 

The original (ca. 1930) station was a ten foot by eight foot one-story building with a canopy extending out on the Main Street side. By 1950 Sanborn maps show the building had been altered or a new building constructed with a rectangular footprint and an angled corner and two-story tower on the southeast corner. The Sanborn notes this building was concrete block with a concrete floor. The addition to the west was added after 1950. The original exterior has been covered with vertical aluminum siding (typical gas stations of this design were sided with white glazed brick over concrete block). 

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.