Historic buildings, Ann Arbor, Michigan / by Marjorie Reade and Susan Wineberg.

John Wagner Jr. Blacksmith Shop CONTINUED
After 1895, the storefront portion was operated by Oswald Dietz as Deitz's
Saloon. Throughout the 20th century, saloons and restaurants operated here
under a half dozen different names: Barrell House, Dietz's Soft Drinks (during
Prohibition), Flautz's Restaurant, Metzger's German-American Restaurant,
Flautz's Cafe, LaCasa Restaurant, and Del Rio Restaurant and Bar, the present
tenant. Charles Miller, in his 1982 biography of W. H. Auden, recounts going
with Auden in 1941 to "the then popular Flautz Tavern" and having him comment, "This is all right, but isn't there a common place where, uh, the workers
go? A kind of beer hall?" (They ended up going to another bar on Ashley
Street.)
This commercial Italianate building is typical of many built just after the Civil
War in Ann Arbor. It is of local red brick, three stories high, with a fancy
bracketed cornice surmounting brick pilasters which divide the facade into
three bays. True to the Italianate style, the upper story windows are tall and
narrow and capped with curved window heads and keystones.
The ground floor facade was sympathetically remodeled in the mid-1970s.
Using an old photograph, the new owners eliminated earlier changes inappropriate to the building's style.
IHP

First Congregational Church - text on next page

Il~ s~ eIr 11W., Il~