Category: Significant Structures

In the decade from 1859 to 1869, four school districts were formed in the areas surrounding the Michigan Agricultural College. None were near enough to be convenient for faculty children, the majority of whom were home schooled until 1900 when a new fractional school district was created, later to become East Lansing Public Schools. Brickyard…

Robert Sidey Shaw was born at Woodburn, Ontario, on July 24, 1871. He earned his B.S.A. degree from the Ontario Agricultural College in 1893, and after five years managing his father’s farm he joined the faculty of the Montana State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts as Professor of Agriculture and Assistant Agriculturist in the…

Grant Martin Hudson (1868–1955) was a Baptist minister, erstwhile merchant, and member of the Anti-Saloon League who served two terms in the State House of Representatives before he arrived in East Lansing. He was elected city alderman here in 1922, but that same year he won election to the U.S. Congress, representing Michigan’s Sixth District…

Ernst Athearn Bessey (1877–1957) was Professor of Botany beginning in 1910, following the retirement of William Beal. He served as President of the Michigan Academy of Sciences in 1915. As Professor of Botany he resided with his family in Faculty Row № 7, better known today as Cowles House, before they moved to this house upon its completion…

A later residence of the John H. Cowley family.

In the East Lansing history book At the Campus Gate, a photograph of Station Terrace appears with this caption: Station Terrace, which housed faculty bachelors and served as East Lansing’s Post Office from 1912 to 1923. Later it was moved to 291 Durand (corner of Ann Street); the “excess lumber” was used in building the house next door.…

Edward R. Blair (1851–1936) was Foreman of the College Farms from 1899 to 1905. He was the first Supervisor of the city of East Lansing when it was incorporated in 1907.

Murray Delos Van Wagoner (1898–1986) was a civil engineer and state highway commissioner before serving one two-year term as Governor of Michigan, 1941–1942. He enacted legislation establishing the Michigan State Safety Commission “to promote greater traffic safety on public roadways.” In return, the headquarters of the Michigan Department of Transportation in the state capitol complex…

As enrollment at the Michigan Agricultural College grew rapidly in the early twentieth century, so too did the City of East Lansing. By 1922, the year Bailey School was built, “there were 1,341 adults in East Lansing, fifty-two percent of them connected in some way with the College. About five hundred students were enrolled” in the school…