100 W. Chicago Road

By Audora Burg
Sturgis Journal
Aug. 31, 2009
Address at center of city home to many offerings
     Great Lakes Chocolate and Coffee Company occupies a double-space site at 100 W. Chicago Road, in a building that is the third structure on that lot.  But prior to the 1988 city directory, the building's interior was divided into two single store spaces that bore two separate addresses, both 100 and 102 W. Chicago Road. Thus, tracing the history of this business and building must include a look at both.
     This is no small undertaking, given the sheer number of enterprises that have claimed these two addresses since the first settlers arrived in Sturgis.  Perhaps this is directly related to the building's location: the corner of the crossroads of Chicago Road and Nottawa Street, geographical center of commerce in the new settlement of Sturgis, the point where addresses transition from west to east and from south to north.
     Few enterprises are missing, as preserved in historical records, from the line-up of occupants over the years on the southwest corner of Chicago and Nottawa, at 100 and 102 W. Chicago: at 100 W., dentist, physician/surgeon, beauty shop, CPA, insurance agent, photographer, dance studio, fabric store, pizza, clothing store; at 102 W., hardward store, osteopathic physician, optometrist, finance company, shoe store, business secretarial service, floral shop, and drug store.  To follow, then, a focus on the major tenants over the years.
     According to Rober Hair's book, "Sturgis, Michigan: Its History to 1930," the earliest occupant of that corner of Chicago and Nottawa was the first frame hotel on the Sturgis Prairie, built in 1831 by Oliver Raymond.  No name was listed for that hotel, which was among the businesses destroyed by the Sept. 26, 1859 fire that claimed the buildings, all made of wood, on the south side of Chicago Road between Nottawa Street and Pleasant Avenue.
     The buildings of that block were rebuilt, and according to Hair's book, by 1864, there was again a hotel on the southwest corner of Chicago and Nottawa, the Prairie House, under the ownership of William Dorsey.
     In 1898 or 1899, depending on the source, fire again claimed the structures at 100 and 102 W. Chicago.
     According to Hair, "Early on the morning of Saturday April 29, 1899, the large and comparatively new Hotel Thornton on the the southwest corner of Chicago Road and Nottawa Street and extending south on Nottawa was totally destroyed by fire, along with several nearby buildings... The Hotel Thornton stood on the west side of Nottawa Street with its entrance about what is now 107 S. Nottawa Street.  Its second floor extended north to Chicago Road over a grocery store on the corner operated by James J. Packard and over a drug store adjoining the grocery on the west that was operated by Packard's father, Frank.  When the hotel burned in 1899, the grocery and drug store also burned... On the ground floor at the Chicago-Nottawa corner was a triangular store occupied by a shoe shop run by Charles Munger; the building owned by Albert and Charles A. Sturges, was partially insured.  Adjoining the Sturges building to the west on Chicago Road was first the F.S. Packard & Son grocery and then the F.S. Packard & Co. drug and jewelry store."
     More details can be found in the 1925 article announcing the grocer Packard's retirement after 34 years in the business.
     "J.J. Packard first entered the retail grocery business in this city with his father, the late Frank S. Packard,  the late Frank S. Packard, who bought out the James Thornton grocery directly across the street from the present J.J. Packard grocery.  In 1896, Packard & Son, as the firm was known, moved across the street to the present  location, but a fire which razed that section of the business district drove them to their former location across the street in 1898.  The firm was then sold and Mr. Packard was out of the grocery business for three years.  At the end of that time he again re-entered the business and has been actively connected with it since."
     Packard's successor, the National Tea Company, occupied 100 W. Chicago until 1930, following which a variety of tenants came and went.  The next major series of occupants at 100 W. Chicago were electrical in nature: Otto Niggli, then Giesen & Spiller, both listed as electrical contractor, services, and appliances, and then Gullen Appliances, in residence from 1961 until someone before 1974.
     The directory listed 100 W. Chicago as vacant after that, until 1980, when a succession of short-term occupants came through: Lo-Mar Fabrics, G & D Pizza, and Cindy's Labels for Less.  Then in 1986, Fred Gushwa opened the Keyboard Center, selling pianos and organs, accessories for instruments, sheet music, and providing space and teachers for private lessons.
     It's time to turn brief attention to the fortunes of 102 W. Chicago.  In 1944, Frisinger Drug Store opened there, becoming the first in a series of drug stores: Frisinger, Lind, Hanichen Walgreen Agency, and by 1956, Keister's Wallgreen Drug Store.
     At some point, the city directory began to note a restaurant or soda fountain connected with Keister's Walgreen Agency Drug Store & Restaurant and listed Mrs. Juanita Keister as "fountain manager."
     Sometime between 1974 and 1976, when Keister's moved one door west, to 104-106 W. Chicago Road, 102 W. Chicago was vacant.  As of the 1978 directory, Central Florist established its presence in Sturgis, coming from an address in Centreville; 1984, the floral shop had moved to a different address.
     The last listing for 102. W. Chicago came in the 1986 city directory, with Micro-Link Center, a store selling computers, software, and accessories.
     When Micro-Link moved, Keyboard Center expanded to occupy the entire physical structure, absorbing the 102 W. Chicago address into its own.  As of the 1988-89 city directory, 100 W. Chicago is Keyboard Center, and the next address on the south side of the street is 104 W. Chicago.
     Since 2002, 100 W. Chicago Road has been the location of Great Lakes Chocolate and Coffee Company, owned by brothers Paul Smith and Jared Smith.
     They started with a single store in Sturgis, and by 2007, in pursuit of their vision to be a "deluxe Starbucks, with chocolate," had fulfilled their original goal of opening three more stores: Ann Arbor, Lansing, and Appleton, Wisconsin.
     The Ann Arbor and Lansing locations are expansions, but the Appleton store marks the Smiths' first franchise.
     "The ball is really just starting to roll on this," Paul Smith said.  "I don't have a set goal as to how many, other than I understand the thing we're excited about with franchising, we can reach out into markets that we are unfamiliar.  We can expand more quickly, and the franchise typically puts an owner operating in the store, so you have a local connection."
     But even their out-of-town franchises maintain a Sturgis connection, through the coffee beans that are roasted at the Sturgis store by the Smiths' cousin, Greg Purlee.
     "That's part of our franchising," Smith said.  "We supply all the coffee, so it's going to be roasted fresh here in Sturgis, then shipped to all the locations, but that gives us a competitive advantage because we can control our quality and our freshness and our supplies."
     With a roasting capacity of 100 pounds of beans per hour, Smith estimates they can supply 25 to 30 stores with the current roasting machine- "then that that point we'll upgrade." he said.  "So we'll see where it goes from here."
On the Net: www.greatlakeschocolate.com

The date of this picture showing the 100 block of the south side of Chicago Road is not known, but knowledge of fire history on that block as well as the sign designating Citizens State Bank helps narrow down the date: the second fire to destroy those buildings occurred in 1898 or 1899, the bank was in that location from 1892 until 1924, and Chicago Road was paved in 1913.  The street in the photo appears unpaved; if this presumption is accurate, these dates combine to suggest a date between 1900 and 1913.

Great Lakes Chocolate and Coffee Company roasts its own coffee beans, supplying its Sturgis store as well as its locations in Ann Arbor, Lansing, and Appleton, Wisc.  "I think the coolest thing about the building is we do the roasting here," said Paul Smith, co-owner with his brother, Jared Smith.  "We exposed the brick walls, there's a window you can see in, see us roasting- it's kind of a neat feature."  The Smiths' cousin, Greg Purlee, shown here, does the roasting.

Great Lakes Chocolate and Coffee Company has occupied 100 W. Chicago since 2002.  The building's exterior shell formerly housed two separate spaces and addresses, 100 and 102 W. Chicago, each with its own tenant.  Sometime in the later-1980's, the Keyboard Center moved in, then expanded, combining the two interior spaces into a single numbered address, 100 W. Chicago.