Oak Ridge (1924)

Map excerpted from City of East Lansing Use Districts, 1926. The cross-street at the south end of this plat is not evident today, if it ever existed at all, but lots 16 and 61 (left unnumbered on this map) have been cut through to extend Oak Ridge Avenue to the east and west.

Just west of Chesterfield Hills, a twenty-acre portion of the John H. Cowley farm was acquired by the “Oak Ridge Land Company” in 1919 for development. Jacob Schepers was the company president. Oak Ridge was soon advertized as having “113 lots to sell” in a plat where “all streets are boulevarded.”[LSJ, 12 Sep 1919, p. 25]

The plat consists of Highland Avenue from Grand River Avenue south to Oak Ridge Avenue, and Cowley Avenue to about 223 and 236 Cowley. It’s not clear what exactly happened here—by the time Oak Ridge was annexed into the City of East Lansing on April 7, 1924, it consisted of just 74 lots, ordinary streets without boulevards, and Schepers was the notary for the plat document but not an officer of the Oak Ridge Land Company.

Oak Ridge is not listed among the City’s historic districts, although it contains many homes in a variety of cozy, pleasant styles from the 1920s and 1930s. There are no historic houses in Oak Ridge except, technically speaking, the “Landmark” Johnson–Stoddard House, the majority of which stands on Oak Ridge’s Lot 1.

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