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.
Address: S. Broadway
South half of the block behind the 200 block of W. Main St; today it is King Milling Co. C-Mill and silos
The first buildings in the south half of the block (1885) were a small livery, two dwellings, and a large roller-skating rink which was 20 feet to the eaves high.
Roller skating was a social fad during the 1880s. An orchestra played live music while you skated. This rink had a spectator gallery above the main floor so performances could be enjoyed by the community. Local competitions as well as professional performances were held here. A fire on May 20, 1891, destroyed the Roller Rink, Mrs. Laughlin’s house and barn, Mr. Bush’s barn (his house caught fire but was repaired) and the livery. The roller rink was not rebuilt because the fad had passed.
The second building here (maps 1892-1910) was a large “Farmers Shed” for horses to be stabled while farmers were in town.
In 1912, Charles Jakeway built a third building, a produce warehouse and elevator, 34×76 feet, three stories high adjoining the Pere Marquette railroad track on the north. The building had a concrete foundation and brick veneer. His business was the same as that done at his Jakeway facility in Moseley –handling potatoes, beans and fruits. Jakeway also shipped livestock. “The six deck loads consisted of 411 lambs and 163 hogs …” Lowell Ledger, Nov. 5, 1914.
Tragedy struck on October 14, 1916. Jakeway’s life and that of his father-in-law was taken when his car was hit by a “flyer” train when crossing the Grand Trunk tracks south of Lowell. A freight train on the side-track had blocked his view.
In 1917, Mrs. Jakeway sold the Jakeway Elevator to Carlton H. Runciman for $8000 after placing an ad in a Detroit newspaper. Runciman, a young man aged 27 years, married with two children, saw the ad and responded. He was born on a farm in Chelsea, graduated from Chelsea High School, took a Ferris Institute Business course and graduated from Michigan State Normal College. Next, he was the superintendent of Millington and then Grosse Isle schools.
Runciman moved his family to Lowell and continued the elevator business selling beans, potatoes and seeds. Soon he was expanding and building additional buildings. An office building was constructed prior to 1929. In 1931, he erected a three-story brick building connected to the bean elevator and in which 100 electric-powered bean picking machines were installed. Sanborn Insurance maps show the Warehouse and Fan Room 1st floor; Picker Room 2nd floor and a Bean Bin on the 3rd floor. A Feed Warehouse was also built on the East end of the complex.
“Bean picking” refers to the process of picking stones, debris, and bad beans out of the product before it is packaged. In 1931, there were 100-bean picking “by hand” machines installed, each with an employee picking the bad beans out of the trail of beans moving along on a conveyor belt which was foot-powered. A year later the first electric eye bean picking plant in the world was set up here in Lowell. Now they were automatically separated by color and with a puff of air they were removed from the line of beans going into the package.
The big expansion of Runciman’s businesses came after 1932 with the electric eye sorter installation (shown above). Its speed was one bean a second. It replaced hand sorting. It was truly a revolutionary invention, and its first installation was right here in Lowell!!
The fourth building came when Runciman rebuilt the present building on the Jakeway elevator site in 1963 after a fire destroyed the original one. It is thought the fire had started near the electric eye picking section of the building from a spark from a belt. Anyone in Lowell for weeks after the fire remembered the horrible smell of burning beans.
The elevator with all of the other Runciman property was purchased by King Milling Co. in 1968. Today the elevator building is called King Milling’s C-Mill. The two westernmost concrete silos adjacent to the C-Mill were Runciman’s and were part of the purchase in 1968.
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