The Washtenaw House Hotel

The Washtenaw House Hotel. . , Anson Brown and Edward Fuller built the Washtenaw House on Broadway in 1832. Only steps away from Brown's Exchange Block, and across the street from future Huron Block stores, it seemed ideally located to welcome travelers and guests to what they hoped would become the business center of Ann Arbor. Arbor The Washtenaw House was once the largest hotel between Detroit and Chicago. Early stage coach routes following old Native American trails from Detroit, Plymouth, and Pontiac made it a convenient stopping place. Guests could stable their coaches, oxen, or horses behind the hotel and travel by carriage to other destinations in town. A comfortable first-floor dining room, parlors, a bar, a third-floor ballroom, and 32 guest rooms attracted distinguished guests. These included Michigan's first governor, Stevens T. Mason-known as the "Boy Governor" after he was elected in 1835 at the age of twenty three. , Only two months after Anson Brown's death in 1834, the hotel was sold to William Thompson, who took pride in banning "ardent spirits" from his hotel for the "public good." He advertised it as a "Temperance House." That was not, however, the policy of subsequent owners. In memories of 19th-century neighbors, the tavern, the ballroom, and the parties and dances attracted people from all over the state. Men of the community gathered in groups on the large porch for a drink, a bit of gossip, and their evening smoke. The hotel had the best-known bar in the state west of Detroit. Weddings, public meetings, and church gatherings were a part of the mix. George Spathelf, a Lower Town merchant, asserted that as a young man he learned to dance the military schottische in the ballroom., William Thompson owned the Washtenaw House for only a short time. Ironically, Thompson was one of the commissioners of the first railroad from Detroit to Marshall and one of the pioneers who gave 40 acres of land as a campus for the University of Michigan-both on the other side of the river. Those two commitments assured the eventual end of Anson Brown's dream of Lower Town the becoming the center of the city., By the time Lower Town was incorporated into the city of Ann Arbor in 1861, several hotels surrounded the county courthouse in the upper part of the city. New roads and railroads to Detroit and Chicago reduced the need to come to or even pass through Lower Town. Manufacturing would shape a different future for Lower Town., A printed invitation to "D. T. McCollum and Lady" was sent inviting the Lower Town couple to a "Tippecanoe Ball" in the Washtenaw Hotel on March 4, 1841, the day of President William Henry Harrison's inauguration. The list of "managers" of the ball included all of the politically prominent people in Harrison's Whig Party in southeast Michigan. A typical log cabin picture adorned the invitation.