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Douglass House (Houghton, Michigan), listed on the NRHP in Houghton
County, Michigan - named for Lydia Douglass(1).
The Douglass House is a hotel located at the corner of Sheldon Avenue
and Isle Royale Street in Houghton, Michigan.
The original
Douglass House was a three-story frame structure built in 1860 on the
corner of Isle Royale and Montezuma Streets, with a garden stretching to
Shelden. The hotel had 50 rooms for out-of-town visitors, and the dance
hall and dining room served as the social center of Houghton. In 1899, a
group of Houghton-area investors, headed by John C. Mann, incorporated
the Douglass House Company and purchased the hotel. By that time, the
original frame structure was showing its age, so the Company settled on
the idea of constructing an addition that would be appropriate for
Houghton's new-found prominence.
The group hired Henry L.
Ottenheimer of Chicago to design the structure and Paul K. F. Mueller of
Chicago to construct it. The new addition cost $125,000 to build and
another $30,000 to $40,000 to furnish, and doubled the capacity of the
hotel from 50 to 100 rooms. In 1901, the original frame hotel located on
the site burned down. In 1902, an addition to the present hotel was
constructed on the site by Herman Gundlack of Chicago.
In 1984,
the Douglass House was converted to apartments. The first-floor bar
remains intact.
The Douglass House is a four-story Italian
Renaissance hotel constructed of buff-colored brick. The hotel is built
on a sloping lot, so that the structure height measured from street
level increases from two stories in the rear to four stories in the
front. The front facade features towers at the corners, which are not
included in Ottenheimer's original architectural plans. A loggia with
gold cupolas stretches across the front. The facade is trimmed with
white-glazed terra cotta.
The original hotel had an entrance on
Isle Royale Street, leading to a lobby level one floor above the Shelden
Avenue street level. The Shelden Avenue side had stores along the first
floor; the remainder of the first floor had a bar and card rooms. The
lobby level had a main desk, two lobbies, as well as a telegraph office
and a sitting room. The upper two floors contained guest rooms.
Notes:
1.
Lydia Douglass, b. 10 Dec 1780, married Judge Jacob Houghton.
Among their 9 children was Douglass Houghton, for whom the town
of Houghton was named. Douglass Houghton
was, among other things, the State Geologist for the State of
Michigan and is given great credit for mapping the extent of the
copper ore deposits in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan that
extends out into Lake Superior. This set off decades of mining.
A great deal of wealth was made from the mining and smelting of
the copper ore.
Lydia married Daniel
Douglass, b. 22 May 1752, whose line of descent (backwards) is:
Robert Douglass, b. 28 Dec 1705; Thomas Douglass, b. 15 May
1679; Robert Douglas, b. abt 1639; William Douglas, b. abt 1609.
Lydia's father was
William Douglas, b. 01 Jan 1707/08, then Richard Douglas, b. 19
Jul 1682; then William Douglas, b..01 April 1645; then William
Douglas, b. abt 1609.
2. In the spring of 1847 Mr. Sheldon and his
brother-in-law Mr. Douglas came to Portage Entry and there began
their trading, adding fishing and other industries. About four
years later they removed again, this time to the Quincy mine,
where they conducted a mine store in which general merchandise
was sold. In the spring of 1852 they platted the village of
Houghton and moved their goods to a building located almost
opposite the site of the present postoffice on Isle Royale
street. This enterprise was continued until the fall of 1862
when they sold out to Smith & Harris. In 1849 and 1850 Ransom
Shelden had been quietly exploring the country in the vicinity
of the present towns of Ioughton (?Houghton) and Hancock and in the
following winters the partners organized the Portage, Isle
Royale and Huron Mining Companies, operations being commenced in
the spring of 1852. [When with his wife and young family Ransom Shelden came to the Northern Peninsula in the summer of 1846, he was a man of only moderate means, having been extremely unfortunate in his farming and other business ventures in Wisconsin.]
See also
• Captain Daniel Douglas (22nd May 1752 -
27th September 1823)
• Courtney Douglass,
bc1812
• Douglas Mining
Company
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