YOUR ELi: East Lansing, Rewound

Ann Nichols’ column this week about Spartan Spirits and other businesses that have been here forever has been bringing historical delights to the ELi mailbag. Among the communications was one letting Ann know that Spartan Spirits used to be a grocery store!

Hearing this from Ann, I found myself wondering if Charlie Washburn might have once shopped there. In 1923, Charlie built the house I now live in, in the Oakwood neighborhood just west of Hannah Community Center. He and his wife lived here for somewhere over 50 years. According to histories of East Lansing, he made his living through ownership of a place called “The Smokehouse” downtown. The Smokehouse was apparently a sort of tobacco shop and soda joint popular among the students of Michigan Agricultural College, the predecessor to MSU. Legend has it Charlie was part of the recruiting and “care” system for MAC’s athletes, long before the NCAA started forbidding the kinds of “interventions” he provided.

As we’ve renovated our house since purchasing it in 1998, we’ve found remnants of the Washburns. When we redid the original fireplace mantlle (made of 1920s plywood), we found a playing card, a very fine crocheting needle—like the kind one uses to make lace—a 1926 Mercury dime, and an unexploded bullet.

When we redid the kitchen, our contractor found in the wall the Postum Cereal tin you see above. According to Wikipedia, Postum was a beverage designed as a caffeine-free coffee substitute. It was made in Michigan “from wheat bran, wheat, molasses, and maltodextrin from corn.”

As she’s been learning of these kinds of “archaeologies” of East Lansing more and more through her management of ELi, Ann has got to thinking about how ELi might take the long view of “news”—stories of how things have changed in East Lansing over decades, stories to transport our readers beyond the changes of the last week. Since one of ELi’s stated missions as a nonprofit organization is to provide to the people of East Lansing a sense of community, this idea fits the ELi vision perfectly.

And we know our reporters—from our MSU writing students to our senior contributors—will love doing these stories. One of the most satisfying stories I’ve gotten to report for ELi was the interview I did geographer with Alan Arbogast about the glacier that made East Lansing what we know today. (The REALLY long view of East Lansing!)

So get ready for “EL Rewind,” a series that will be bringing you hyper-local stories about what was before what is now in the streets, the houses, the schools, and the small corners of East Lansing.

If you’re an old-timer in East Lansing, or someone who has dug around enough to uncover some interesting history, we want to hear from you about what you know. These stories can be big—as big as the glacier. But they can also be small, as small as a tin found in your kitchen wall. Tell us what you know, and we’ll help you share it with your neighbors.

And thank you for reading.

Coming up in YOUR East Lansing this week:

Saturday: Boy Scout Merit Badge Blitz

Saturday: Maker Studio, Window Cling Craft

Saturday: Music of the Dream

Sunday: 11th Annual MSU Schubertiade

Monday: Company Housing and the 1913 Michigan Copper Strike

Monday: Public Library Homework Help

Monday: Happy Birthday Mozart

Tuesday: BWL Board Meeting (open to the public)

Tuesday: East Lansing City Council, land sale ballot discussion

Tuesday: Broad Museum Film and Talk on “Classmates”

Wednesday: MSU Faculty Recital by tuba player Philip Sinder

Thursday: Martha Bloomfield Book talk, Hmong Americans in Michigan

Friday: MSUFCU High School Art Exhibit

Friday: Broad/East Lansing 2030: Ecologies and Economies

Friday: MSU Faculty Recital: Michael Kroth, bassoon, and Deborah Moriarty, piano

Friday-Saturday: Mid-Winter Singing Festival

Saturday: East Lansing Children’s Concert with Mark Dvorak

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