The History of the Pleasant Lake Inn
By Ray Berg On Sunday, February 8, 2015, the Pleasant Lake Inn in Freedom Township was severely damaged by a fire of unknown cause. The fire totally consumed the bar/restaurant area of the structure on the east side, which was a converted dancehall built in 1920 downhill on the site, and then relocated, modified and […]
Comings and Goings at the Manchester Hotel (Part 3 of 3)
By Ray Berg This Part 3 concludes our history of the Manchester Hotel. Changing Times By the 1890s, the general tenants of the Goodyear House were more likely regular boarders than transient visitors, as the concept of “apartments” took hold in America. Some signs of gradual deterioration were beginning to show. In January 1892, the […]
Comings and Goings at the Manchester Hotel (Part 2 of 3)
By Ray Berg Figure 3 – View of Downtown Manchester, 1868 The Manchester Hotel, which operated under different names over its approximate 105-year life, existed at the northeast corner of Main and Clinton Streets in downtown Manchester. Part 1 of this article covered the earliest years of the structure. We pick up the story after […]
Comings and Goings at the Manchester Hotel (Part 1 of 3)
By Ray Berg In this three-part article, we examine the history of a prominent early Manchester business, the Manchester Hotel, also known at times as the Manchester House, the Goodyear House and the Freeman House. This multi-story and multi-business building sat on the northeast corner of Main and Clinton Streets from the mid-1830s through 1938, […]
Mirror Classic: Christmas in Michigan 172 Years Ago
In 1842, Michigan had only been a state for 5 years. The state had been brought into the union by Stevens T. Mason, our first governor, who was at the time of statehood only 26 years old (he had assumed the office of Territorial Secretary at the age of 19). In his short term in […]
Early Manchester Photographers – Part 4 of 4
by Ray Berg and Alan Dyer In the previous three articles of this series, we have presented histories of some early Manchester photographers from 1860 – 1890, before the advent of the Kodak camera made personal photography feasible. So far, we examined the Manchester careers of Susan Speechly, Samuel Davis, Harriet Osborn, Henry Bissel and […]
Early Manchester Photographers – Part 3 of 4
by Ray Berg and Alan Dyer In the previous two articles of this series, we discussed early Manchester photographers from 1860 – 1890, a period when commercial photographers provided portrait and street scene images, before the advent of the Kodak camera made personal photography feasible. We started this series by examining the Manchester careers of […]
Early Manchester Photographers – Part 2 of 4
by Ray Berg and Alan Dyer In Part 1 of this series, the authors identified several early photographers who established studios in downtown Manchester in the 1860s through 1890s. We began with Susan T. Speechly, who operated studios in Manchester, Ann Arbor and Dundee, and specialized in formal portrait photography. Her business in Manchester was […]
Early Manchester Photographers – Part 1 of 4
by Ray Berg and Alan Dyer In June 2009, the authors met with local Manchester resident and historian Howard Parr, who had been given a photograph album by another local resident, Jane Cook, for donation to the Manchester Area Historical Society. This album was originally assembled by Addison DeForest Kief, a descendant of the Artemus […]
Talkin’ Trash in Manchester—Part 4 of 4
by Alan Dyer and Ray Berg In July 1879, the Council received complaints concerning the dangerous conditions that existed in the tannery area, the bank of the upper pond where a pig sty was located, and certain unnamed premises on Exchange Place. The following week the village attorney was asked to draft an ordinance relative […]
