A Brief History of East Lansing

Category: #LostEastLansing

  • The “Home-Building Campaign” of 1929–1931

    A variation of this article, in tweet-thread form, was originally published as part of the #LostEastLansing project in November 2022. The house on the corner of Grand River Avenue and West Oakwood Drive in East Lansing has a unique history. Notice how it stands out on the 1951 Sanborn fire insurance map. In a sea…

  • Baker’s Switch — a vanished neighborhood

    A variation of this article, in tweet-thread form, was originally published as part of the #LostEastLansing project in December 2022. I wonder what one calls a place that was once part of the local parlance but now no longer exists, and which has been so erased from the landscape that even its name is all…

  • The Michigan State Bank at East Lansing

    As East Lansing experienced rapid growth in the 1920s, a group of investors decided to establish the city’s second bank† to compete with the East Lansing State Bank (ELSB). The “Michigan State Bank at East Lansing” (MSBEL) was founded in January 1927 with a capitalization of $5,000—a modest sum given that more than a decade…

  • Charles H. Chase versus the Michigan United Railway Company

    A tweet-stream version of this article was published in August 2022 as part of the #LostEastLansing project. As mentioned in the article about the College Grove plat, East Lansing’s Division Street was created when College Grove developers Horace Angell and Charles Chase sued to split their partnership and the resulting chancery decree called for a…

  • A forgotten East Lansing tragedy

    A tweet-stream version of this article was published in August 2022 as part of the #LostEastLansing project. In the 1976 book At the Campus Gate: A History of East Lansing, Max Skidmore Marshall (1897–1985), the son of Bacteriology Professor Charles E. Marshall, remininiced about growing up in East Lansing as one of the M.A.C. “campus…

  • The Wildwood Inn (1913–c.1925)

    Lulu M. and Iza Bell Smith, sisters born in Pennsylvania circa 1875 and 1877 respectively, moved with their parents to Michigan around the turn of the century and by 1910 were living with them in north Lansing. In 1913, the “Misses Smith” opened the Wildwood Tea Room in the newly completed apartment building of the same…

  • The State Theatre (1927–1984)

    East Lansing’s first movie theatre was called the Elmac (an acronym of East Lansing Michigan Agricultural College). It was built around 1915 on the east side of Abbot Road, about a half block north of Grand River Avenue. The theatre only survived for a few years before closing its doors. Its building remains standing at…

  • Wildwood Apartments, 308 Abbot Rd. (1913–1972)

    Local Weather Bureau forecaster Dewey A. Seeley (M.A.C. ’98) commissioned College Architect Edwyn A. Bowd to design a three story, six unit apartment building at the northeast corner of Abbot Road and Albert Avenue. The Wildwood Apartments were the first apartment building constructed in East Lansing, completed in 1913. The name stemmed from the fact that Abbot Road was called…

  • Gov. Wilber M. Brucker House, 621 M.A.C. Ave.(c. 1923 – c. 1999)

    Wilber Marion Brucker (1894–1968) was Attorney General of Michigan 1928–1930 and Governor 1931–1932, during which time he resided at 621 M.A.C. Avenue. While he served the State, his wife Clara Hantel Brucker (1892–1980) attended the College, earning a B.A. in Liberal Arts in 1930 and an M.A. in History and Political Science in 1932. (She…