A gigantic map of all the cool plaques in the world. A project of 99% Invisible.

Between Downtown and the Railroad

Triangular block bounded by Detroit, Fifth, and Kingsley, 1897

 

In 1845 the first St. Thomas Catholic Church, built on Kingsley Street east of Division, was Ann Arbor’s first brick church and its largest.  In 1868 the parish opened its first school in a former public school building that still stands at 324-326 East Kingsley.

 

The Fourth Ward School, later named for school superintendent Elisha Jones, was built on Division Street in 1867.  It was replaced in 1922 by the building that eventually became Community High School.

 

Between Downtown and the Railroad

 

Hurd-Holmes’s farm implement business was one of many industries between downtown and the railroad.  David Henning erected the brick building to your right in 1864 to expand his barrel factory and apple-packing business.  It was later Moses Rogers’s farm implement shop, then a creamery, a lumber warehouse, a machine shop, and, as the neighborhood changed, an art gallery, and the first home of the Ecology Center.

 

On this block in 1835, Ann Arbor’s first Catholic mass was said by Father Patrick O’Kelly in James Horrigan’s home.  Irish and German Catholics settled nearby and in 1845 build the first St. Thomas church.  On the corner to your right in 1899, church member Francis Stofflet build row houses for his married children.  On the opposite corner in 1902, Italian immigrant Rocco Disderide moved his house to make way for his new grocery store.

 

By the 1980s the neighborhood had changed.  The row houses became condominiums and the grocery the popular Zingerman’s Delicastessen.

 

The Buchoz Block, built in in 1851, stood behind you on Detroit Street.  It supplied the neighborhood’s everyday needs with a grocery, bakery, and meat market.  Carpenters, cobblers, tailors , cigar makers, barbers, and dressmakers ran businesses here – some lived upstairs, the name of one saloon, the “Half Way,” reflected its location on the streetcar line between the railroad depot and downtown.  The location of the tracks is still apparent in the brick paving on Detroit Street.

 

Behind the 1895 parade float (right) are the Buchoz Block and houses, including Disderide’s on the far left.  The block was demolished in 1922 for the new Jones School playground.

 

Sponsored by Zingerman’s Community of Businesses

 

Photos courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library

 

Submitted by

Bryan Arnold

@nanowhiskers

 

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