Mystery store: 176 S Main St, Mt. Clemens MI

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Andrew T.
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Mystery store: 176 S Main St, Mt. Clemens MI

Post by Andrew T. »

Last month, I spent some time in Michigan to do research and scour the Detroit Metro for interesting relics from grocers past.

The first serendipitous moment of that trip happened when I stumbled across this store. I was a block away, I spotted the barrel roof and pylon out of the corner of my eye...and promptly drove around the block just to take a picture of it! Here it is:
mtclemens.jpg
Any ID I can put on this one? National is my first guess (and the place and era seem right for that chain), but I don't know the history or veracity of this particular location. The facade has also been stuccoed over, obscuring its original brickwork.
"The pale pastels which have been featured in most food stores during the past 20 years are no longer in tune with the mood of the 1970s."
Andrew Turnbull
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Andrew T.
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Posts: 689
Joined: 18 Oct 2007 14:26
Location: Minnesota's attic, Canada
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Re: Mystery store: 176 S Main St, Mt. Clemens MI

Post by Andrew T. »

Update:

I solved this mystery in the most brute-force way possible: By physically driving to Mount Clemens, walking into the public library, and looking up the location in the 1958 and 1963 Mount Clemens city directories! As it turns out, 176 South Main Street was indeed a National store: Just as I expected!

There was one catch, though: The old directories listed the store as being on Gratiot Road (one block west), not Main Street. This is because Gratiot Road itself has been realigned in the city with a northbound/southbound split that didn't exist in 1963. The Mount Clemens Public Library has a handy list of name changes, and these clear up the wherabouts of old Gratiot addresses:

Gratiot North (1-157): North Main (beginning May 1, 1994)
Gratiot North (165-499): Northbound Gratiot (beginning May 1, 1994)
Gratiot South (1-229): South Main (beginning May 1, 1994)
Gratiot South (231-1698): Southbound Gratiot (beginning May 1, 1994)


I'll be posting the CSV for Mount Clemens soon.
"The pale pastels which have been featured in most food stores during the past 20 years are no longer in tune with the mood of the 1970s."
Andrew Turnbull
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