Monday, June 8, 2009

Reader-Submitted Mystery Photo: What's Next to Gaudy's Chocolate Shop?

Our last Mystery Photo was correctly guessed by Building Place, who said, "I'm going with a view looking south from the Congress St./Michigan Ave. bridge just east of downtown." That's right--this is the old Huron Mill, run by the Deubel brothers.

Here's a description of Huron Mill, from the May 23, 1874 Ypsilanti Commercial. "This in earlier days was the model mill of Michigan." You may recall that Huron Mill was still one of the 25 big industries in Ypsi in 1901.

Our next Mystery Photo promises to be a stumper (even though none of the others have, darn it!) This is a photo from a kind reader. You may remember Gaudy's Chocolate shop as the onetime employer of ice cream maker Frank C. Smith, one of the only 270 African Americans in Ypsilanti in 1910.

Today's picture (below) is from some time later--1946, and the subject is not Gaudy's but the hardware store just to the left.

For extra trickiness for you Google- Book- miners out there (like me), the first letter of the name of the hardware store is cut off.

(whispers: "Ha!")

So, see if you can drill into this puzzle, hit the nail on the head, and hammer out the identity of the modern-day business located in this postwar hardware store.

2 comments :

Building Place said...

It's definitely a mystery. Good one!

Dusty D said...

Building Place: You are kind to say so but as it turns out it was spotted within, literally, minutes of posting--before it even got posted on Twitter! I was so deflated (bah! Just can't beat these eagle-eyed folks!) I didn't yet post an update but I will...with a new pic too. :)