Response to Reader Request: Cross Street Mill

Hey, you want a piece of toast?

Then you'd better hitch up the team, boy, 'cause we're out of flour again. Yep, I know. We gotta go to Detroit for more.

Close the door but leave the latch string out. C'mon, let's go while it's early. We can stay along the plank road.

We're lucky we got a wagon to go in--them early folks wasn't so lucky.

They had to wait for the flatboats to come on up the river there. Couldn't even make it all the ways to the city. You run out back then, in the 20s, you were plumb outta luck. Dang, this plank road's bumpy. Hang on!
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My dad and I used to have to go clear to Detroit to get so much as a peck of flour. I ain't funnin' ya, missy--all the way over there. 'Course now we have the city mill on Cross Street. Take a look at this-here old map and you can see it...right there.
Here's another one. On the 1856 map you can see it's labeled "Ypsilanti Mills" and there on the 1864 one they have it as just "G.M.," which I imagine stands for Grist Mill.

70s...that was when Bill Deubel bought it. Did you know Bill's dad was Napoleon's butcher? Yes ma'am. Anyways, Bill bought it in '73 from Nathan Follett and renamed it the Deubel Mill. Deubel had another one too, down near Congress. I think one in Ann Arbor too, around that time. Can't remember. That Deubel, he was a big name in the community. Fact they even wrote a poem about him, and some other Ypsi folks too. How did that--Oh yeah:

"Round the flowery meadows winding

Deubel’s corn and good wheat grinding

Driving all the wheels and bands

Tumbling o’er the deep mill dams

Then foaming down in white cascades

And murmuring in the woodland shades.

Runnin the Mayor’s belts and cranks

And sawing Fomor’s logs in planks,

Barnes and Cornwell’s paper mills

Many a purse and pocket fills;

Giving work to the great and small,

Where the bright booming waters fall.

Straw and rags with steam and vapor,

Rolled out in sheets of clean white paper.

And rolls of paper by the mile

For printing in the best of style,

The notes and credit good and strong

the city paying every bond."

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You-all think times is tough now, with the Depression--well, this old grandmother remembers when MY grandfather told me about HIS father having to go all the way to Detroit for just a reg'lar barrel of flour! Yes, sir! And not in no automobile, neither! That was about a hundred years ago. Long before that old mill on Cross Street and all the other old mills in town. Hand me that book and I'll show ya.
This right here is a map from 1874. You can see that old mill right there. It's labeled "City Grist and Flouring Mill." You can see that by 1874 the mill had its very own railroad spur, coming off. Take a look at all of those tracks! There's one, two...six railroad lines going through right by that mill. Must have been pretty noisy with those trains all day long.

Here's a map from 1895. Take a look at that huge swamp just north of Frog Island. That was from the woolen mill dam.

The dam was down in the water where Forest Street crosses over, just on the south side of Forest Street. Quite a factory back then. Famous for its undergarments.

The hoboes hang out in that general swamp area up there--right by the trains--so they say.

I don't want you going up there, now.

This last map is from around 1915. Look at that old mill race on Frog Island, closin' up. End of an era.

And look at the photo I've got stuck in here. Can you figger out when this was taken? Give you a hint--it's this century. Can you find any clues?

Exactly right-there's that old car on Rice Street, looks to be about a...maybe around 1915 too.

Just like your uncle's old car, isn't it?

Take a look at the nice paint job they had up on that mill back then.

Says the "Ypsilanti Grain and Elevator Co." Right nice lookin'.That old mill stood for a lotta years. Hope you do half so well in your time. That's enough chit-chattin' now, and it's time to go to bed.

Tomorrow we can make some cookies, with some of that store-bought flour of your mom's.

Yes, I'll tell you another story tomorrow. Off you go now.