Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

LANSING TowNSHIIP AND CITY, WITH HISTORY

527

at the opposite end, under which were some small rooms that
served as offices.
The Edmonds store, as is told in a legend of copper letters on a
brass background, was founded here in 1854. It first was a harness shop which stood further up the block. The present site was
first occupied with a general merchandise store, painted with a
checkered blue front. A fire about 1872 swept the frame buildings out where the Edmonds store and the bank building now
stand. The Edmonds business was the second of business houses
still existing here. The first of the concerns still in existence is
the Buck furniture store, the founding of which antedates the
Edmonds store by about seven years.
Mr. Edmonds relates that he was born in the same block where
his business is now located. Grand street, in those days, was the
fine and fashionable thoroughfare of the city. At the corner of
Michigan and Grand Avenues, where the VanDervoort hardware
store now stands, was the old Chapman House, conducted in its
later years by a Mr. Wentworth, who later transferred his hotel
business diagonally across Michigan Avenue, to where the Wentworth portion of Wentworth-Kerns now stands.
Grand Avenue was first called Grand street, but it became so
pretentious that it was changed to avenue. The east side was
particularly attractive, according to Mr. Edmonds. The river
bank was sightly in those days and numerous families had terraces that overhung the river or else landing places for boats at
the water's edge. Those sites are now occupied by industrial
plants and no trace of the former glories of the river bank are even
suggested, save one. A trace of the old steamboat landing can
still be found under the Michigan Avenue bridge.
OLD BOAT LINES.
In the " 5 Years Ago Today" department of the State Journal,
conducted on the editorial page, some reference is made from
time to time to the old steamboat that ran from somewhere near
the Logan street bridge to what was called Leadley's Park, now
Waverly Park, but that steamboating was a modern instance as
compared to the trips of the "Pickwick" and the "Mary" from a
landing place just above the dam at North Lansing up to the old
Mineral Springs Hotel. This stood near the confluence of the