Edward Porter Kinney House, 829 E. Grand River Ave. (c. 1903 – c. 1987)

Edward Porter Kinney (1867–1955) founded the Capitol Electric Supply and National Coil Company in 1895, later known as the Capitol Electric Engineering Company. “As proprietor and president of this company, Kinney supervised many electrical engineering jobs throughout the Lansing area including work on the Capitol and on the Michigan Agricultural College campus. E. P. Kinney married Wilhelmina Sarah Graham and they had eight children,” at least five of whom received degrees from Michigan State. Their eldest, Edward Everett Kinney (M.A.C. ’15) was hired by M.A.C. in 1920 as Instructor and later Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, and retired 38 years later—from M.S.U.—as Superintendent of the Buildings and Maintenance Department.¹

In October 1986 the Evans Scholars Foundation purchased four of the five Fairview lots between Kedzie Street and Orchard Street, a parcel that included the Kinney house lot. The house was soon demolished to clear the site for a new Evans Scholars house.

1. M.S.U. Archives. Minutes, 16 Jun 1915, p. 206 et. seq. ↩︎