Category: Landmark Structures

Wilbur Olin Hedrick (1868–1954, M.A.C. ’91) was Professor of English 1891–93, Assistant Professor of History and Political Economy 1893–1906, Head of the Department of History and Economics 1906–1916, Head of the Department of Economics 1916–1930, and retired in 1938. He initiated the first classes in agricultural economics at M.A.C. in 1911. He was an early member…

Armidas Alphonse “Claude” Lauzun (1882–1962) worked at the REO Motor Car Company starting around 1913 (possibly earlier), working his way up to an executive position as factory superintendent. In 1936, the same year that REO stopped building automobiles to focus on trucks, Lauzun moved to Oldsmobile where he stayed until his retirement in 1955. Claude…

Fifty-three local Masons organized in 1915 and were chartered on May 24, 1916, as Lodge № 480, Free and Accepted Masons. They immediately hired Lansing architect Samuel D. Butterworth, a fellow Mason, to design a meeting hall. Butterworth’s design, a four-story Italianate brick building, “was constructed at a cost of over $14,000. The Temple was used…

“Newell Avery McCune, M.A.C. ’01, was pastor of Peoples Church from 1917 to 1948. During McCune’s pastorate, the Church’s rapid growth paralleled that of the City. As a dominant community figure, McCune helped protect the ‘dry clause’ in the City Charter, which was not repealed until 1968.” The Newell A. McCune House is an East Lansing Landmark Structure.

A man of many talents, Professor Chace Newman (July 27, 1871 – November 2, 1953) was first employed by the College in 1892, and taught engineering drawing and design for more than forty years until his retirement on September 1, 1939. He designed this house himself, his second in East Lansing (the first was on…

This quaint neo-colonial building, designed by local architect Harold A. Childs, was constructed to provide water service to the Strathmore subdivision. It sheltered a well and water pumps, and a large water tower once stood on the triangular green to the east. The tower has since been removed, and the green is now a city park. The well…

The East Lansing community was composed almost entirely of faculty with strong religious backgrounds, and along with the formation of the school district and the City itself, the organization of a church was of high importance. The earliest recorded meeting on this subject took place in the original Central School on October 23, 1907, and “The People’s…

Herman Klock Vedder (1866–1937) graduated from Cornell University and worked as a civil engineer, focussing mainly on bridges and hydraulics, before becoming Professor of Mathematics and Civil Engineering at M.A.C. in 1891, which at the time was a single department. During his tenure Vedder tirelessly sought to expand the program and was instrumental in separating…

Chester D. Woodbury was a Lansing businessman and one of the developers of the Oakwood subdivision. When Woodbury and his wife May lived in this residence, it was located at 292 Grand River Avenue (later renumbered to 110 West Grand River), on a double lot between Abbot Road and Evergreen Avenue. It was designed by noted Lansing architect…