tHE CHARLES E. RUSSELL HOUSE

Above is a photo of E. Harris Street, which we found preserved inside plastic at the local library and which likely was taken between 1902 and 1910 via a hot air balloon or kite (a supposition based on the state of aerial photo technology known at the time). Our house is the Queen Anne with the soaring turret and circular porch (third from the left). The streetscape and buildings in Cadillac’s Courthouse Hill Historic District and the surrounding area look almost the same today as they did at that time, including Harris Street, although the house on the far left burned down during the very early 1900’s and was never rebuilt. The gorgeous (and now somewhat crumbling) residences in downtown Cadillac were, at one time, the homes of lumber barons and movers and shakers in the manufacturing industry. The architectural style in the historic district and its surrounding area predominantly is Victorian and most of the homes are very large (our house is about 1,350 square feet per each of the four floors plus we’re currently adding another 240 square feet for a total of approximately 5,640 square feet, because I’ve always dreamed of living in the Winchester House, LOL).

Our realtor, Greg Bosscher, took this photo on March 19, 2016, at the closing of sale while Mike and I were still living in California. Can you just feel the potential? I could, and I was over the moon! We bought the house for $95,000, mostly because of issues concerning the rear brick façade which led people to speculate that the house was falling down. Spoiler alert! It’s not falling down although admittedly it looked like it was.

The early history of the house is fairly well documented in Cadillac’s city records, although I’ve supplemented it with research online and at the local library around the corner from our house. In 1883, Charles E. Russell moved from his home in Adrian, Michigan to Cadillac and set up a stationery, book and confections business in a corner section of the W.E. Hunt Store. Later that same year, this very entrepreneurial fellow became collections manager for a local banker called D.A. Blodgett & Company. Two years later, in 1885, Charles entered into a land contract and used his store inventory (valued at $806) as collateral to buy the property at 311 E. Harris Street from a man named George Bradbeer. At that time, our house didn’t exist but there was a much smaller home situated towards the rear part of the 5,563 square foot lot.

Three years after contracting to buy the property, in 1898, Russell tore down the original house and started construction of a much larger, zero-lot-line house which would become his home and, 118 years later, our home. During this time, Charles and his wife, Winnie Cynthia Russell, either had or took up residence a few houses away while construction continued for four long years (which isn’t a surprise given the era, the size of the home, the intricacy of the woodwork and masonry and, of course, the brutality of Cadillac winters). The home was completed in 1902 and, at that time, the couple moved into their beautiful new home, which is just a few blocks up the hill from Lake Cadillac and the bustling downtown area. Michigan’s historic survey says our house was built in 1903, but I think this is incorrect. I researched phone directories at the local library which show Charles and Winnie living down the street from 1898 until 1902, when, for the first time, the directories show their new residential address at 311 E. Harris Street. City records and urban legend say Charles Russell modeled the house on his childhood home in England, but we’ve since determined this oral history likely is not accurate. My research shows Charles was born in Milwaukee on August 6, 1850., and there’s no evidence he lived in England any time during his life. Theoretically, it’s possible the home was based on descriptions of the childhood home of Charles’ father, John H. Russell, who was born in 1824 in England and lived there while the Queen Anne style was popular in British architecture. In any event, the home now is a contributing structure in Cadillac’s Courthouse Hill Historic District and the details of its architectural style and finishes make it unique amongst the buildings in Cadillac’s historic inventory.

By all accounts maintained in local records, Charles was a prominent businessman and member of community for the first couple decades of the 1900’s. In 1897, he bought a “commodious” and first-rate hotel called The American House Hotel from Cornelius K. Russell (no apparent relation) and, after renaming it “The Russell House,” turned it into office and retail suites. By 1900, Charles was acting treasurer of the Michigan Savings & Loan Association whilst simultaneously running a successful insurance agency and serving as Vice President of the Michigan Fire and Marine Insurance Company. Then, in July of 1902, he formed and became president of the People’s Savings Bank, which leased space in the bustling Russell House. Not content merely to run an insurance agency, bank, and manage a large retail property, during these years Charles also managed the extravagant 700-seat Cadillac Opera house. The only information I have regarding the fate of these ventures is that the People’s Savings Bank shuttered during the depression on October 22, 1931, about 10 months after Charles died. The Opera House, which was built in 1901, was completely destroyed in a 1930 windstorm, within a year of Charles’ death. The Russell House, which was located just a couple blocks from our house, burned down in 1923 or 1924 and was shortly thereafter rebuilt (it’s now a retail building owned by our good friends). It’s not clear when or if Charles sold this property before he died, or if he was the person who had it rebuilt.

During my library research on Charles Russell in 2017, I found a handwritten note card inside a file cabinet which described him, somewhat gratuitously, as a very “dignified” individual. As I read this, I had an odd, fleeting sense that underlying this superfluous description was an element of defensiveness or maybe forlornness, although I had no reason to know why. But a year or so later, I was reading one of those “100 Years Ago Today” spreads in the Cadillac News which maybe explained my intuition. This article contained the reprint of a news article dated August 11, 1918, regarding Charles. To my surprise, the article said Charles had been arrested that day by one Deputy U.S. Marshall Handy and charged with illegal use of the U.S. Mail. The article went on to say Charles was accused of writing two “offensive, non-mailable letters” dated November 10, 1917 and July, 1917. The article doesn’t explain what specifically was offensive about the letters or why they violated the law, only that they were “illegal,” anonymous, and that the postmaster pinned Charles as the perp because the envelopes bore stamps which had been marked and sold to him. I’ve never found information about what happened after this, only that Charles was taken to Grand Rapids after his arrest, that he appeared before U.S. Commissioner Fred M. Breen, and that he was thereafter released on a $2,500 bond proffered by Drs. C.C. Miller and A.W. Johnston.

I found nothing at the local library or online showing what was going on with Charles in the years following his 1918 arrest. Through online research, I learned that on New Years Day in 1931, Charles died at 80 years of age from heart disease. At the time, he still was married to Winnie, who lived in this house until her death in 1945. Both Charles and Winnie are buried in the Russell Family plot (B17-21) located at the Oakwood Cemetery in Adrian, Michigan. I took the above photograph of the streetscape in front of our house on New Years Day in 2018, and I can’t help but think this is just how it looked 87 years earlier, to the day, when Charles passed away in our home.

And now, onward and yonward! In the photograph prior to this one, you’ll notice a patch of white at the very end of the last block on the horizon. That’s actually Lake Cadillac (pictured here), which freezes solid every winter. Cadillac has two all-sports lakes in town, Lake Cadillac and Lake Mitchell. Both lakes are full of boats and jet skis during the summer and ice fishing shanties, snowmobiles, and snowy campfires in the winter. The cities’ two lakes are connected by the historic Clam Lake Canal, which runs through the middle of the 334-acre William Mitchell State Park. The park was dedicated in 1919 and hosts one of Michigan’s most popular summertime campgrounds.

Nothing beats summer in Northern Michigan! Here’s the canal view beyond the stern of our 1965 Century Resorter, with the campground to the left. The one-third-mile-long canal is man-made and was dug in 1873 at the behest of Cadillac’s founder, George A. Mitchell, to facilitate the transport of trees from Lake Mitchell to sawmills on Lake Cadillac. The canal, which has been widened to 50 feet over the years, is notable in that it’s featured in “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” due to unique characteristics than cause it to freeze before either lake freezes and then melt for the rest of the winter season after both lakes have and remain frozen.

I took this photo looking over the bow of our boat towards a popular sandbar on Lake Mitchell, which is the larger and more shallow of the two lakes. Both lakes are surrounded by pretty lake homes, although shores of Lake Mitchell has more of a remote and “cabin-y forest-y” feel than those of Lake Cadillac, which is closer to the downtown area.

Here is our wood boat moored near the shore of Lake Michigan in Manistee, which is about an hour from our house. Coincidentally, this is just a few minutes from where the boat was built in 1965 (the the same year I was born) on the shore of the Manistee River.

When Lake Michigan is calm, we can take our little boat for short jaunts along the majestic shoreline of this Great Lake, which is as large as an ocean.

Levi is most happy aloft the engine cover.

On the shores of Lake Michigan near Petoskey, Michigan.

Pictured here is a section of the lush White Pine Trail, which we frequently walk and bike in the summertime. The trail is 92-miles long between north Grand Rapids and Cadillac and formerly was a railway. In the winter, snowmobiles are allowed on the trail. In the summer, it’s filled with hikers, strollers, and bikers.

The view on the trail is much different, but just as beautiful, in the winter.

Coming from California, I’m just not accustomed to walking on water. Here’s Mike venturing out onto the lake while I bring up the rear.

Trust me. The dog is happier than he looks.

That’s all for now! Head to the next section to see the inside of our historic Queen Anne.