Albion Interactive History / Buildings / Downtown
101-109 N. Superior Street, 1900
Past Occupants
Gale Manufacturing Company, to 1888
Albion Malleable Iron Company, 1888-1898
Parker-Kessler Block, 1900 to present
Architecture
This two-story, rounded corner building is topped by a corbel cornice. Beneath the cornice is a string course made up of two courses of headers in a checkered pattern. Flat stone lintels cap the windows which are set singularly in pairs. The upstairs windows are one-over-one with single light transom windows above. The windows and transom windows rest on stone sills. These sills form a running string course on the south and east elevations. Number 109 is entered through a single glass door set in the curved corner. This curved corner entrance to 101 features glass block door surrounds, which appear to have been added in the 1940’s or early 1950’s. A segment of the building projects over the Kalamazoo river and is supported by steel and concrete piers.
Source: National Park Service; Superior Street Commercial Historic District Registration Form. Prepared by Lloyd Baldwin. October 1996.
Gale Manufacturing and Albion Malleable at one time both called the NW corner of Cass and Superior Sts home.
Image Source: James B. Field, Souvenir of the City of Albion, 1894.
Owners received a grant from the Downtown Development Authority to repaint their facade in 2000.
Sign and fire escape on the west facade of the building.
Source: Isaac Kremer, January 2004.