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Any photos not otherwise credited are from the personal collection of Frank Passic, Albion Historian.
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Morning Star, September 14, 2008, pg. 6 I’ll be looking forward to seeing you this Saturday, September 20 at my Albion History Booth at the Festival of the Forks, in front of Citizens Bank. I’ll have my Albion history materials available. Be sure and stop by. A reminder: My Riverside Cemetery tour will be Sunday, October 12 at 1:30 pm. We will meet at the new Veteran’s Memorial Stage on the south side of the cemetery. Soon some of the most deteriorated sidewalks in the City of Albion will be replaced as part of the benefits of the specially designated millage passed last year. There was a suggestion that some of the millage money should be spent on conducting classes on how to use a sidewalk, with “feet on” practice to some residents who should find this class helpful. The work projected this fall includes the 1901-laid stretch on the west side of S. Superior St. Many of Albion’s original sidewalks were laid in 1901 by contractor George Dean, a few years before he purchased Union Steel Products. It was George Dean who also poured our present Victory Park waterfall dam. During 1966, the historic David Peabody home on the southwest corner of W. Erie and S. Eaton Sts. was demolished as part of an Urban Renewal project. The Peabody Place apartments were subsequently erected on the site. As part of the demolition project, the original 1901-laid sidewalk around the block was removed, and a new sidewalk installed. On the same property on the northwest corner of W. Ash and S. Eaton Sts. were some pine trees with large root systems which were exposed on the hillside which was adjacent to the sidewalk. As children we used to play in the roots while walking to Dalrymple School. You could hang on to one root, and pull yourself along in and out to the next one. When the Peabody Place project commenced, the contractor salvaged full slabs of original 1901 sidewalk. They carefully stacked and cemented them together on the aforementioned corner, to make a permanent decorative wall. If you have driven by this corner and wondered what the wall was constructed of, that is it: old sidewalk slabs! Keep in mind that this was done in the days before recycling was “in.” From our Historical Notebook this week we present a photograph of the old-sidewalk corner “wall” by Peabody Place. 
The Old-Sidewalk Corner “Wall” by Peabody Place Next: 1954 BOY SCOUT TROOP 60 All text copyright, 2024 © all rights reserved Frank Passic
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