The Ann Arbor sesquicentennial journal. [Vol. 1, no. 8]

COUNTRY ESTATES, COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS, TROLLEY BARNS
FIGURE IN HISTORY OF BURNS PARK AREA
by Margaret Saxon..........
The Burns Park area is richly en- Vz
dowed with places of historic inter N-sl lawCaNic
est, having long been a favorite residential area for both faculty and stu- 17Fl"0
dents from the adjoining University t
of Michigan. Early homes date back lift
to the 1840's. They were farmhouses0
for "suburban" farms whose owne roccupants also worked in the city.
County atlases show some subdividing as early as 1874, and by
1900 most of the land north of the,
park had been subdivided. Subdivi- 1V
sion had reached as far south as Sta I
dium Boulevard by the 1930's. The;~
present n-Axture of private homes,
apartments and fraternity houses goes W
a long way back.
The park itself was the county vo 6
fairgrounds from 1890 to 1910, when, -:;
1 0 - iithe city purchased it for use as a-------
park. Its half-mile race track was

maintained and used by the Ann Arbor Driving Club for horse racing and
time trials until about 1920.
The present double row of American Elms was planted in this oval
track during the 1930's, and the old
track's route is still clearly visible.
The land was leveled as a W.P.A. project during the 1930's, and the leftover dirt forms the hill children play
on today.
The Burns Park Elemlentary School
was built in 1927 and served as Tappan Junior High School until 1952,
when the junior high moved to its
present location on Stadium.
Across Wells from the park between Lincoln and Olivlia was the site
of the car barns for the Ann Arbor
Street Railway. From 1894 until
1925 electric trolleys went from the
barn down Lincoln, Hill, and Washtenaw to the campus, then downtown, and to the Michigan Central
Depot and back. Tracks on Wells

Street connected with the interurban
trolleys on Packard. For most of
their history the same company ran
both lines.
"Old-timers" in the neighborhood
remember that on football Saturdays
the extra cars which had carried spec~tators from Jackson and Detroit
would be lined up all along Wells
during the game. (They played on
Ferry Field then.)
A spectacular fire in 1925 destroyed the car barns and also helped
bring about the demise of the trolley
system, which had lost ground to
automobiles anyway.
Of many interesting old homes a
few are outstanding. The oldest house
still standing is the Hall house at
1530 Hill, built by J. D * Baldwin in
the late 1840's. His farm was
bounded approximately by Hill,
Washtenaw, Ferdon, Granger, and
Lincoln. In 1876 Israel and Olivia
Hall purchased it. In 1890 Olivia Hall
sold the back pasture to the County
Fair Association for the fairground.
In return she received the earlier fairground on Hill near Forest, which she
subdivided along with part of her
own land. She gave her name to
Olivia Street and named Israel Hall
Road for her husband. The city
council changed the name to Cambridge in 1910. The Hall's granddaughter presently owns and occupies
the house.

Other interesting homes are the
Eberbach house on Woodlawn (featured elsewhere in this journal), the
Spanish stucco Fingerle-Malcolm
house at 1606 Cambridge, dating
from 1908, the Goodyear house at
1010 Lincoln, built in the early
1900's by the department store founders, and a landmark known to local
residents as "The Castle," actually
the Miller house, built in 1893 on
Prospect.
The Memorial Christian Church
was originally built in 1890 on South
University, where the Law School
now stands. In 1923 the university
took the land and the church was
taken apart (with the stones carefully
numbered) and rebuilt at the present
Tappan and Hill location.
Today the neighborhood has a diversity of people and buildings. U of M
faculty and students predominate.
University expansion has led to its
ownership of many area buildings.
Presently many people are involved in
finding adaptive new uses for large
old fraternity houses. An active community association works to preserve
the architectural heritage and maintain the present residential character
of the area.
Margaret Saxon is a Burns Park resident and Acting President of the
Bumns Parkr Community Association.
History is her avocation.

Page 111
SOUTH UNIVERSITY
(continued from page 3)
after the turn of the century. As the
University expanded, the character of
the neighborhood was gradually
changed. Junior faculty members
came to predominate. By 1915 almost one quarter of the houses had
been built, and by 1926 the last of
eighty frame stru cture s in Ten
Brook's addition was finished.
Many of these lower-middle-class
neighborhood house plans were simi-,
lar. One can find pairs of almost
identical houses side-by-side, which illustrates how contractors cut costs by
saving on architectural fees. Despite
the neighborhood's modest nature, a
number of prominent persons lived
here at some point in their careers,
including Fielding H. Y~ost, University
football coach; Moses Gornberg,
world famous chemist; Leigh J.
Young, professor of forestry and later
mayor of Ann Arbor; and Stewart
R. Mott, now a New York-based philanthropist.
Although a number of students
roomed in the neighborhood from its
beginnings, not until the 1950s and
1960s did old families begin leaving.
Many homes were rented out to
groups of students.
Mid-sixties Building Boom
In 1963, most of the area was
rezoned R4C (multi-family). Its character began to change quickly. Between 1963 and 1968 absentee landlords purchased old houses, tore them
down, and replaced them with modem student apartments.
Residents' opposition to these
developments, changes in the building

South University and Walnut. Area
residents maintain the park, on private land, with no city assistance.
Neighborhood trash pickups and
other events have financed fences,
park benches, playground equipment,
and landscaping.
Bill McNitt is Assistat Archivist at
the Bentley Library, Michia Historical Collections.

""BASEBALL TO-DAY AT THE FAIR
GROUNDS, I says the sign-and the
trolley will take you there. The street
railway car barns stood right across
Wells Street from the present Bums
Park.