Build New Plant to Build Houses

Detroit Free Press, March 14, 1964

In filing away the Holmberg Lumber sales sheet pad that I bought a month or so ago at an estate sale I discovered a few interesting things about the firm, as seemingly has been the case with other lumber companies in the area.

Fellrath's had their seized glass-encased taxidermied whale that I wrote about in the fourth issue of The Nankin Township Monitor.

Harold Hilliard of Wayne's Hilliard & Reiser Lumber was instrumental in delivering large shipments of food to residents during the Great Depression and his firm put a massive 600 pound piece of coal out front of the business on Brush Street as a show piece only to have it stolen.

Dearborn and Wayne lumber dealer James Wallace mysteriously died during a carriage ride from his brother's home in Wayne back to Dearborn. He was only 46.

Einer Holmberg was an innovator in manufactured homes, starting his business in Inkster in the 1930s and delivering kit homes for decades under the name of Component Houses. His lumber yard in Inkster was also part of civil unrest in 1968 after a recreation center named after Malcolm X was stripped of the title by the city council and Holmberg's firm was firebombed. I'm not sure if I will go into the details of the unrest in the Monitor but it is strange that such a seemingly banal business as selling wood led to so many interesting incidents over the years.

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A Dudley Randall Poem in Milestone 2

I bought this Milestone 2 poetry Magazine at a Livonia estate sale this week. Milestone was the literary publication of Wayne (State) University and this second issue dates to 1949. While I don't recognize most of the names, Dudley Randall was both a nationally known poet and the librarian for the Wayne County General Hospital at Eloise via the Wayne County Library System. The poem featured is The Southern Road which was a revised version of the completed poem from 1948 that h as a handful or two of word differences between the two. I don't know if Randall edited the poem for later collected works editions or earlier but this link features it in its likely final form in 2009. Neither version particularly enchants me but the block print in the magazine is an added bonus.

A Cabinet Card of a Dead Man Lying in Repose From Wayne Photographer Susan Doolittle

The City of Wayne, Michigan was not a large village at the turn of the 20th century so it stands to reason that there wasn't a glut of photographers practicing their trade there. As such, the 3 cabinet cards and carte de visites that I own represents roughly a quarter of the early ones. Considering that the wives of Frank Hickok and William Corlett, first Village President of Wayne, took over after Frank's death in 1892 the list grows smaller beyond those two families. Had I snagged the Doolittle dead man cabinet card I'd be even that much more Wayne-rich in photographs. Speaking of Susan Doolittle, of whom I have learned very little about, it is interesting to note that Wayne had three women photographers in an era oft dominated by men in that very field. This photograph of a corpse is a startling example of her work.

Frederick Soop: Not An Equal Opportunity Restraunteer

Detroit Free Press , March 28, 1890 If you don't want to hear a racist tale of a suburban namesake then close your eyes now. As early as 1876 Frederick Soop had left his Belleville farm once again, having done a stint at the Hawkins House in Ypsilanti during the Civil War and the City Hotel in Detroit thereafter, and ventured off to Chatham, Ontario to run the Rutley Hotel , which was conducted as a Temperance House. Detroit Free Press , August 17, 1879 In 1879 he was searching for a good restaurant or small hotel to operate. Eventually he ended up on Washington Avenue near State Street running a dining hall which he ran until around 1890. Detroit Free Press , April 16, 1890 It was in 1888 when the aforementioned racial incident occurred at his dining establishment. It was then that William H. Haynes, a black doctor, sat down with his former classmate S. W. Barkwell for dinner. The men ordered but when the food was served none was placed before Mr. Haynes who, ironically, ha...

The Nankin Township Historical Society

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