The Lowell Area Historical Museum presents a new weekly online series. Missing Along Main explores the buildings that once occupied Main Street but are no longer there.
Randall Building
South 400 Block, East Main
In 1854, Joshia Randall built the first 3-story frame building in Lowell on the site of today’s Huntington Bank. It was considered a very good building. Mr. Randall and his wife lived in the second story.
The ground floor was first occupied by Chapin & Booth for the sale of merchandise (a general store). Chapin and Booth also had a warehouse on the banks of the Grand River at the steamboat landing to store their merchandise and that of others when it arrived. They stayed in the Randall building only two years because Randall raised the rent from $200 To $300 a year. Next, Smith and Sweetland rented it for a grocery store.
The building was first sold to Mrs. Mericle; then to Mrs. L. D. Bates who occupied the second floor until she sold it to Dr. Arvine Peck. The front part of the second floor was used for offices at different times by: Dr. A. Peck; Dr. Horton Peck, dentist; A. B Balcom, dentist; Dr. McDannell; Squire Burt, T. J. Slayton and M. M. Perry, attorneys at law.
In 1860, as Mr. N. B. Blain passed the building, he heard a thud and suddenly a woman came running downstairs screaming. She whirled around the foot of the stairs and picked up a baby that had fallen from the platform above, about 14 feet, and was unhurt.
The third floor was used as a Masonic lodge room. During Abraham Lincoln’s campaign, it was occupied by a Republican club called the Wide-Awakes.
Dr. Peck moved the building to West Water St. (Riverside Dr.) and Valentine Kraft rented the ground floor for a wagonmaking and carriage shop after his shop burned in 1875. In 1890, both Kraft and his 19-year-old son died during an epidemic of La Grippe (influenza). John C. Scott, owner of Scott’s Hardware, bought the building and converted it into a stable. He sold it in 1903 to W. W. Wilson who took the upper part down for the lumber. Scott moved the remainder back from the street. It was later torn down.
The site of the Randall house was later the McDannell/Hosley House and then Huntington bank.
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