Five more retailers join MRA’s Centennials list

In the first six years of the Michigan Centennial Retailers program, MRA turned up 75 retail establishments that have hit the century mark. This year’s efforts have produced another five, for a total of 80 businesses.

The group of retailers joining the list has sold home furnishings, woolen goods, newspapers, flowers and vegetables, international and gourmet foods.

This year’s Centennial Retailers were honored at the Michigan Retailer of the Year Awards luncheon on October 10 in Lansing. Each received a bronze plaque and a certificate.

Chris Engel Greenhouses
Detroit – Founded 1883
Christopher Engel founded his greenhouse in Springwells, a community later absorbed into Detroit as the city expanded. It has remained at the same location, in the same family, for 122 years.

Current owner Arlene J. Earl is the founder’s great granddaughter. Arlene remembers her grandfather hitching up a horse-and-buggy to sell his merchandise—vegetables and flowers—in downtown Detroit eight miles away.

Arlene is known in her own right as “The Great Lakes Flower Lady” with the crews of ships sailing past her home on Harsen’s Island in the St. Clair River. Some 25 years ago she started waving to the ships from shore, and when a crew would salute back, she would have flowers delivered to the ship via the mail boat in Detroit.

The tradition continues to this day, with freighters receiving flowers from her store throughout the year, as well as 30-40 centerpieces sent during Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Mapes Furniture Company
Sunfield – Founded 1892
J.H. Bera founded his furniture store in Sunfield—a small town between Lansing and Grand Rapids—and like many furniture stores around the turn of the last century, it also provided undertaking services. In 1907 Bera’s son-in-law, Harry Mapes, joined as partner and the store became Bera and Mapes.

In the 1930s the store was renamed Mapes Furniture and became known as “the big store in the little town.” In addition to furniture it also sold, at various times over the years, sewing machines, pianos, appliances, lace curtains, floor covering and even Buick automobiles.

Today it’s a complete home furnishings store, owned by Harry L. Mapes and managed by his daughter, Rebecca Calabro.

Frankenmuth Woolen Mill
Frankenmuth – Founded 1894
Franz Ranke built his woolen mill to serve the area’s many sheepherders. Taking on partners Ben Felgner and William Abraham, the business added modern knitting machines that allowed it to knit great volumes of socks and mittens for World War I soldiers.

At that time, the mill had Frankenmuth’s largest payroll, employing about 25 men and women. When the demand for socks and other woolens fell off, the mill adapted by expanding its line of wool-filled comforters. A large retail store was added in the 1940s, featuring woolen comforters and other dry goods.

Gary and Carol McClellan bought the business in 1977 and recognized the mill as a “working piece of history,” so they decided to keep it in operation. In the 1980s the mill became one of the premier wool processors for fiber artists across the nation. The current owner, Abby McClellan, bought the business from her parents, Gary and Carol, in 2006.

G. B. Russo & Son International Grocery
Grand Rapids – Founded 1905
Giovanni Battista Russo came to Grand Rapids in 1902 from the small village of Montelepre, Sicily. He founded his first small store in 1905 in East Grand Rapids.

A few years later he bought a building in Grand Rapids, in the heart of “Little Italy,” where he worked with his parents and siblings.

When his only son, Frank, was born in 1916, he changed the name from G.B. Russo Importer to G.B. Russo & Son. The store has had four locations over the years, with each move providing a bigger space for expanding lines.

It is now owned by Frank’s sons, Phil and David. Five generations of Russos have taken an active role in making this store the successful specialty foods and gifts retail store it is today.

Frankenmuth News
Frankenmuth – Founded 1906
The first issue of the Frankenmuth News—published on July 12, 1906—was a four-page newspaper, with all hand-set type and printed on a hand-operated press. Founder E. W. Gallagher also started the Frankenmuth Board of Trade, which later became the Chamber of Commerce.

In the early 1930s Clint Grainger joined the staff, and in 1946 William Gallagher sold the paper to Grainger and his partner, Edmund Arnold. The paper moved to offset printing in 1968 for a huge savings in time and labor.

Today production is aided by computers, and the final jump to fully computerized printing is in the near future. The Grainger family has been involved with the Frankenmuth News for 75 of its 100 years of operation, and now Clint’s son, Steven J. Grainger, and his wife, Bonnie, are co-owners and publishers.

This article was written by Amy Buttery, Michigan Retailer staff writer.