Streets surrounding Courthouse Square were the site of most of Ann Arbor's largest hotels from the 1830s until 1990. Cook's Hotel was the first of five that have occupied this site. It was followed in 1871 by the larger "Cook House," a temperance hotel for 37 years. Renamed the "Allenel" in 1911 to honor town founder John Allen, it was demolished in 1964 to make way for the Sheraton, later the Ann Arbor Inn. The Allenel, a popular watering spot for local businessmen, politicians, and attorneys, was frequently used for banquets by local groups. It was a favorite lodging for visitors. Distinguished guests stayed in suites on the ornate top floor. The Philadelphia Orchestra stopped there during the annual May Festival.

Photos Courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library

As laid out by village founders John Allen and Elisha Rumsey in 1824, the county courthouse block was to be a spacious town square surrounded by commercial blocks. Until the 1950s, Courthouse Square hummed with the activities that made Ann Arbor the focus of civic and business life in the county. The broad green open space was the choice site for parades, public speeches, political rallies, band concerts, and community events. Many of the area's most prominent hotels, live entertainment venues, banks, eating places, saloons, and other small retail and service businesses ringed the Square. Postal, telegraph, and newspaper offices were centered here and provided communication with the outside world.

With its seven-story clock tower and park-like setting, the second courthouse was downtown's major architectural landmark from 1878 to the 1950s. The seat of Washtenaw County government and courts, it was a grand presence. It proclaimed the vitality and importance of Ann Arbor in the commercial, civic, and cultural life of the region.

This is the site of the central square and first courthouse that were the early focus of urban development and city life. The opera house, post office, activities of banks, law and title offices, and social life generated by nearby hotels, churches and the bus station all surrounded the courthouse and identified this as the center of town.

Photos Courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library

Poster announcing the death of President Lincoln, April, 1865

Civil War Recruitment Poster

Announcement of the laying of the Courthouse cornerstone

Large, luxurious homes with extensive grounds lined Washtenaw Avenue when UM Librarian Andrew Ten Brook built his mansion across the street in the 1860s. Financial hardship soon required Ten Brook’s wife to open a boarding house, providing meals for students in her home.

Making homes into rooming houses began in 1858, when the University turned its dormitories into class rooms. In 1892 Phi Kappa Psi began the trend to convert Washtenaw’s mansions to fraternities, when it moved into merchant Chauncey Millen’s house at the corner of Hill Street. Phi Delta Theta replaced Ten Brook’s residence in 1903 with a new house designed by Albert Kahn, and Sigma Alpha Epsilon occupied the home of manufacturer George Bullis to your right. Kappa Alpha Theta sorority remodeled the house next door in 1916. A year earlier, private benefactors had funded two women’s dormitories, Helen Newberry and Martha Cook. By 1941 eight more dormitories had been added for both men and women. Student cooperatives became part of the housing mix in the 1930s during the Depression, with shared housekeep-ing responsibilities reducing costs.

This site emphasizes variety and changing patterns of residential life: fraternities, sororities, co-ops, and apartments.

Photos Courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library

When local merchants began the Ann Arbor Art Fair in July 1960, South University catered to both townspeople and students. During 40 years of social and political change, the fair grew into a citywide extravaganza. In the twentieth century, as fraternities, sororities, dormitories, and student rooms concentrated nearby, South University had become a focus of student activity. At this corner in the 1950s and 1960s you could have seen homecoming parades or panty raiders shouting "To the hill!" (women's dorms). The 1980s saw a basketball riot and the 1990s the Naked Mile.