William W. Potter (1869–1940) had a distinguished, forty-year career in Michigan politics, having been state senator, gubernatorial candidate, and attorney general. From 1927 to 1931 he was president of the Michigan State Bank at East Lansing. In 1928 he was elected to the Michigan Supreme Court, and served a term as Chief Justice in 1935. Potter died while still on the bench of injuries sustained in an auto accident.
Following Justice Potter’s death, from 1940 to 1949 his widow Margaret D. Potter (1874–1954) rented the house to the College for use as one of several off-campus women’s cooperative houses. Throughout the 1950s it was home to the Delta Upsilon fraternity.1
Four properties on Evergreen Avenue, including the Potter house, were purchased by the City in 2009 in anticipation of redevelopment. The properties were slated for demolition as part of a $148 million project, with a three-story, twelve unit condominium building planned in their place. This was later revised to surface parking lots. However, the project was scrapped in September 2017, which offered a temporary reprieve to the Potter house and its neighbors.2
In April 2021, the City came to an agreement with the Michigan State University Federal Credit Union for construction of a new office building at the northwest corner of Abbot and Albert Avenues. In support of that development an apartment building at 314 Evergreen, a five-bedroom rental property at 328 Evergreen (built c.1913), and the Potter house were razed in August 2021 to provide parking for a construction crane and other equipment. The Potter house had been vacant for over a year and had suffered from deferred maintenance such that the cost of repairs was said to “exceed the likely income.”3
- Minutes, 26 Sep 1940, p. 1659; 15 Jul 1949, p. 2760. ↩︎
- East Lansing Info, 6 Feb 2017, 21 Sep 2017. ↩︎
- East Lansing Info, 12 Apr 2021. EastLansingBuzz.org, 27 Aug 2021. ↩︎
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