Plans of former RE Olds Home
The Historical Society of Greater Lansing is hosting “Lost Lansing”, its first summer walking tour of downtown Lansing 10 a.m. Saturday June 15. The tour will leave from Lansing City Hall at the corner of Capital and Michigan.
Valerie Marvin, president of the society, said the tremendous response to last year’s downtown tour and the recent School for the Blind tour has shown us there is a great demand for historical walking tours in downtown Lansing.
She said the first walking tour will focus on “Lost Lansing” or buildings which are no longer in place either due to “progress” or being lost to fire.
“Many of us walk around downtown and its nearby neighborhoods and assume that the buildings that we see were always there. That’s not the case,” Marvin said.
Old Lansing City Hall
“We see pictures and postcards of buildings like old City Hall and the Post Office and wonder where it was and what happened to it.” Photos of the various buildings will be available so tour participants can visualize the lost structures.
The tour will explore the early roots of downtown Lansing and visit the sites of many “Lost Lansing” homes, churches, fraternal and office buildings including the stunning R.E. Olds mansion which was lost to the construction of I-496 and the nearby Barnes’ Castle which sat on a four-acre site near Main St. (Malcolm X) and Washington before being torn down in the 1940s.
Marvin said the tour also will talk about some of the quirky national building trends that made their way to Lansing such as building octagonal homes (one previously occupied the space where today’s Arbaugh’s is located.)
She said Lansing has been rebuilt several times since it was first settled and as an example she cited the various sites of the State Capitol building.
