Introduction

Origins

The City

Collegeville (1887, 1895)
College Delta (1897, 1899)
Oakwood (1899)
Cedar Bank (1900)
College Grove (1903)
Fairview (1903, 1905)
College Heights (1904)

Charter of 1907

Avondale (1913)
Bungalow Knolls (1915)
Chesterfield Hills (1916)
Ardson Heights (1919)
Ridgely Park (1920)
Oak Ridge (1924)
Strathmore (1925)
Glen Cairn (1926)

The Campus

Chronology

1855–1870
1871–1885
1886–1900
1901–1915
1916–1927

 

Interactive Map

Sites on the National and State Historic Registers

Complete list of
Significant Structures

Sources

College Delta (1897)


Map by the author, based on Newman, 1915.

The “Delta,” the triangular area of land extending west from the junction of Michigan and Grand River Avenues to just west of Delta Street, was included as part of the original Agricultural College land when it was purchased in 1855. At that time, Michigan Avenue’s eastern end was at Harrison Road. When Michigan was extended to Grand River Avenue in the mid-1860s, the Delta (also known as the “Flatiron”) was isolated from the rest of campus. It was assigned to the Botany department in 1888 for use as an experimental garden, but with better proximity to the center of campus than Collegeville, the Delta soon became a prime candidate for faculty housing.[Kuhn, p. 114. Minutes, 9 Jul 1897, pp. 190–191]

By 1897 the State Board of Agriculture was uninterested in further expansion of Faculty Row, and that year platted the site into “College Delta.”* Designed by civil engineer Fremont E. Skeels (M.A.C. ’78, Assistant Secretary to the Board 1897–98) it offered ten large lots at prices ranging from $110 to $150, with proceeds from the sale “going towards the purchase of land for an athletic field on the south side of the river,” now known as Old College Field. Water and sewer service were provided by the College, and housing quickly sprang up. Potential buyers were required to have “connection with college affairs,” and were made to enter a contract “to erect a residence costing not less than $800.” (At the time, a typical professor’s salary at M.A.C. was $1,800; assistant professors and instructors earned considerably less.) Burton O. Longyear (Instructor in Botany 1894–1904, later State Forester of Colorado) was the first to build and moved into his house on January 1, 1898; by September five more houses were complete and two were in work.[MAC Record, 4(1), 13 Sep 1898, p. 1. Lautner, pp. 59, 80–81, 102. Minutes, 9 Jul 1897, pp. 190–191. Towar, pp. 42–43. 39th AR, p. 13. 43rd AR, p. 7]


College Delta, circa 1900, view from campus facing north. Only two years after its platting, at least eight houses have already appeared on the Delta. Longyear’s house is at far left. Photo Credit: Chace Newman Family, reprinted in Kestenbaum, p. 8.

Since College Delta was intended for faculty housing, for several years the Board kept close tabs on its development and purchasers. There is an illustrative and surprisingly candid moment in the Minutes of the Board. Mrs. Olive Backus, who had operated the kitchen of Abbot Hall prior to purchasing the lot at the apex of the Delta, built a boarding house on the site and had an arrangement with the College to provide room and board for up to a dozen students of the Women’s Course which, just two years after its inception, had already exceeded the capacity of Abbot Hall. The “comfortable and attractive model students’ home” was ready by autumn 1898 and housed ten boarders that term, making Mrs. Backus “the first pioneer of East Lansing in that enterprise,” according to Towar.[LCD (1896), p. 286. 37th AR (1898), p. 29. MAC Record, 4(2), 20 Sep 1898, p. 1. Towar, pp. 43–44]

But a year later, in the August 1899 board meeting Secretary A. C. Bird announced that Mrs. Backus was planning to build a store on her property as well. Bird admitted that she had an “unquestionable” legal right to do so, but since the Board’s intent was that “nothing of this kind should ever be done” he suggested an unsubtle resolution: because the water and sewer services were being provided by the College with “no written agreement entered into… it might be possible to prevent the execution of this building by suggesting to Mrs. Backus that… water supply at least would be cut off from her premises.” The Board gave President Snyder and Secretary Bird power to act, and although nothing further was ever mentioned (in the official record at least), no store was built. Within a year, Olive Backus had returned to her hometown of Dansville.[Minutes, 29 Aug 1899, pp. 339–340. U. S. Census (1900)]


Former residence of Professor C. E. Marshall, 224 Michigan Avenue, built 1898. After Marshall moved away in 1912 it was converted as a boarding house for faculty and staff, including the Delta Club. In fall term 1920 it became the home of the Hermian Literary Society, which became a chapter of Kappa Sigma fraternity in 1937 and remained here through at least 1961. Its site is now a parking lot. Image Credit: Wolverine (1930), p. 304.

Twelve houses were eventually built on the ten lots of College Delta,* and over the years they sheltered many of East Lansing’s (and M.A.C.’s) famous names, among them:


Gas station at the apex of College Delta, late 1920s. Dr. Bruegel’s house is at left. Photo Credit: James Case. Reprinted in Miller, p. 50.

The Board of Agriculture could not keep its leverage over the Delta forever, particularly once the City started providing its water and sewer services. Mrs. Backus’ former boarding house became (in 1903) the home and office of Dr. Oscar Bruegel, a local physician, who in 1924 built a gas station at the apex of the Delta. Over time the faculty homes began to be used as fraternity and rooming houses. A wave of redevelopment in the 1950s and 1960s supplanted most of the buildings, and by 1976 only three original homes remained on the plat, which Kestenbaum noted were “architecturally interesting as examples of turn-of-the-century houses rare in East Lansing, [yet] are the youngest and least significant of the twelve built there.”[Miller, p. 50. LCD (1925), p. 232. Kestenbaum, p. 9]

Today the sole survivor, the Landon–May house, is an East Lansing Landmark Structure. College Delta, once a cozy little neighborhood at the heart of the community, is now a collection of large apartment blocks, fraternity houses, professional offices, and commercial buildings.

Landon–May House, 243 W. Grand River Ave. (1902)

 

Brooks’ Addition to College Delta (1899)


Map by the author, based on Newman, 1915.

Charles and Hannah Brooks filled in the last unplatted space between Harrison Road and the Delta with this addition. Louis Street is named for their son Louis C. Brooks (M.A.C. ’92), and has since been converted into a cul-de-sac. Empire Avenue was renamed Elm Place by 1915. Prospect Street was changed to Oakhill Avenue following the creation of College Heights, and later became Hillcrest Drive.

C. M. Krentel House, 322 Elm Place (1906)
Central School, 325 W. Grand River Ave. (1917) SR/NR

Next: Oakwood

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