The Pew Research Center estimates that 97 percent of U.S. adults now own a cell phone, and the number of cell phones in this country will soon surpass 300 million. But in late nineteenth century Rochester, it was easy to count the precise number of telephones in use. There was exactly one. The Michigan Bell telephone exchange office on Walnut Street, ca. 1940 (Courtesy of Ray Russell Postcard Collection, Rochester Hills Public Library) Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone … [Read more...]
Remembering Rochester’s Neighborhood Markets and Grocery Stores
September 30, 2021 by 13 Comments
Tucked into some of Rochester’s older residential neighborhoods are a few ordinary-looking homes and buildings that are unlikely to attract special notice from passersby. But in days gone by, these places were hubs of local activity known as neighborhood grocery stores. Sarah Van Hoosen Jones serves customers at her farm store, At the Sign of the Black and White Cow (Courtesy of the Archives of the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm). In the middle decades of the twentieth century, … [Read more...]
Rochester’s Great Sugar Disaster
December 24, 2020 by 5 Comments
In 1899, Rochester area residents enthusiastically signed on in support of a new agricultural and industrial venture that they hoped would bring jobs and a rich infusion of capital to the community. Because of their efforts, the chimneys of the imposing Detroit Sugar Company mill rose quickly over Paint Creek, but in only seven years’ time they would be nothing more than a memory. The Detroit Sugar Company factory at Rochester as it looked while under construction in 1899. At the turn of … [Read more...]
St. John Lutheran Church Celebrates a Century
February 21, 2020 by 5 Comments
The History of St. John Lutheran Church & School in Rochester In early 1920, a small band of first- and second-generation German immigrants living in Rochester decided it was time to stop riding the interurban car to Royal Oak to attend church services. They asked their pastor, the Rev. Otto H. Frincke of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Royal Oak, to help them form a congregation in their own town. Their first exploratory meetings were held in the home of Charles and Anna Kitchenmaster on Drace … [Read more...]
Paint Creek Tavern’s Past, Present and Future
January 31, 2020 by 5 Comments
The Paint Creek Tavern Has Been Known by Many Names and Has Ties to Interurban and Railroad Days of Downtown Rochester Paint Creek Tavern—known fondly by locals as the “Paint Creek Yacht Club” or “PCYC”— has been a fixture on the banks of its namesake waterway for decades. But despite its tongue-in-cheek nickname, the business got its start not because of its proximity to water, but because of its location near the interurban and railroad lines. During the heyday of the Detroit United … [Read more...]
Bloomer Park is Steeped in History
December 29, 2019 by 23 Comments
Bloomer Park, located at the north end of John R Road in Rochester Hills, is the city’s oldest park. The centennial of its founding will occur in 2022. Long before anyone thought of dedicating the land for recreational purposes, the location was part of a pioneer-era transportation project called the Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal. The Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal was begun under Michigan’s first governor, Stevens T. Mason, who broke ground for the waterway near Mount Clemens in 1838. State leaders … [Read more...]
Rochester Cider Mill is Oakland Township’s Oldest Cider Location
November 9, 2019 by 3 Comments
In 1938, Frederick Sargeant and his son, George, planted an orchard on a 73-acre parcel along North Rochester Road in Oakland Township. Sargeant’s Fruit Farm sold apples, peaches, and cherries, along with tomatoes, potatoes, and flowers from a farm stand on the property. In 1948-49, they made an addition to the building to accommodate a cider mill and an additional sales room. At first, the Sargeants took their apples to Yates Cider Mill to have them pressed into cider, but then Frederick and … [Read more...]
Goodison Cider Mill is Now in Its Sixth Decade of Cider Making
September 28, 2019 by 3 Comments
The Goodison Cider Mill has been a fixture in the small community that shares its name for over half a century. Lloyd Blankenburg, a local fruit grower, and his wife, Marion, opened the mill in 1965. At the time, the Blankenburgs were already operating a fruit stand on the property, so they expanded the building and added a cider press. The fruit stand had stood at the location since the 1920s, and one section of the current building dates from that time. When Lloyd Blankenburg decided to … [Read more...]
Yates is the “Granddaddy” of Rochester Area Cider Mills
August 30, 2019 by 15 Comments
The nation was in the throes of the Civil War when William Henry Yates and his wife, Caroline, bought 80 acres of land on the Clinton River in southeastern Avon Township. It was April 1863, and the Yateses, with their nine-year-old son, Frank, made the trip to their new home in Michigan from Madison County, New York. Settling on land at what we know today as the intersection of Avon and Dequindre roads, William Yates used an existing dam on the Clinton River to power a lumber and … [Read more...]
A Conversation with Bob Lytle
July 30, 2019 by 13 Comments
A Voice and Pillar of the Community Bob Lytle has worn many hats during his more than four decades in the Rochester area: community pharmacist, author of adventure novels for youth, city council member, folk singer/songwriter, poet, storyteller, and ballist (yes, that’s the term) with the Rochester Grangers vintage base ball club. Lytle grew up in Saginaw, where his father was a schoolteacher, but his fondest childhood memories were made at a small cabin in the Les Cheneaux islands. The … [Read more...]
