The Spirit of Wyandotte
Wyandotte has embraced a spirit of ceaseless change and unbounded growth from its very start, or what Joseph Schumpter and Max Page term “creative destruction.” Being an industrial boom-town as it was in the 1850s and afterwards, time was not taken to create a city much worth saving, and when something became obsolete it was sold for scrap and created anew. This is very much a spirit which has gripped Wyandotte and persists to present today.
Few blocks better exemplify this than the original Block #56 or what is now the U.S. Census Block #5807-2015. Fowler and Moyer’s birdseye view of 1896, shows a block that is very different than it is today.
In 1896 the block was occupied by three churches with soaring towers and steeples: the Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Presbyterian Church (whose steeple apparently rose higher than all the others). Whereas in Europe churches and cathedrals trace their lineage across centuries to the Gothic era or even earlier to the times of ancient Greece and Rome, how is it that a church in Wyandotte in 1896 is no longer here today?
The Methodist Episcopal Church experienced a name change and saw a second and third (and present) building constructed on the same site. The Presbyterian Church had an even more tragic fate. Today a 7-11 convenience store with ample parking lot fronting our main street sits on this site. Of the three, the Episcopal Church is the only to retain its same name and location, but not its building.
The original wooden Gothic Revival building that sat on this site was struck by fire and replaced by the slightly less inspiring modernistic creation that is there today.
Another church was located on this block as well, tucked in between the others. It evades observation because it did not look much like a church – it was a school. The Old Brown School is among the oldest and most significant buildings in our town. It once served as a school, but also as a city hall, and a meeting place where various religious groups were formed and held their earliest services at. True to form in Wyandotte, this building no longer stands on Block 56.
The one-time Masonic Temple is on the same site of where the Old Brown School stood. A map from 1929 refers to the building on the site as the “IOOF Hall” (with IOOF standing for the International Order of Odd Fellows – a fraternal organization). The Masons would subsequently occupy, expand, and then vacate this building. Today this building is occupied by another church.
Some questions rise from an observation of what has happened on this block in the last hundred years or so. How is it that the Presbyterians abandoned their edifice, only to have it replaced by a convenience store? Why did the Methodists tear down and build up their church several times, finally settling on one that resembled a New England or London church that bears no particular connection with Wyandotte’s heritage? And how is it that the Episcopalians lost their historic structure to fire? A simple answer may be found in the ravages of history and time.
Looking slightly deeper we might find a more compelling answer. Wyandotte has wrestled with conflicting desires to establish roots over the past 150 years while trying to avoid totally destroying whatever heritage it has in an effort to create or to recreate itself. Only in the past decades has it been broadly recognized and accepted throughout the nation and world that buildings peculiarly embody the heritage of a place, and people have sought to preserve and protect them. Will Wyandotte continue along its same destructive path and discard the heritage that it has, or will this restless wily upstart of a young town mellow into adulthood and seek to preserve and protect those places that define us?
As published December 4, 2005