TRAVERSE CITY — Can you name the oldest building on Traverse City’s Front Street? Might you suggest the City Opera House, opened in 1892? Or the Hannah Lay Building, debuting in 1883 on the northeast corner of Front and Union streets?
Historic they are. But the oldest building on Front was erected a full quarter of a century earlier, in 1859. Anchoring the east end of a small village of fewer than 500 inhabitants, it perched on the edge of a vast wilderness.
Today it is the home of Front Street Tattoos, and nestles rather quietly at 502 E. Front Street. But 166 years ago James Gunton, the city’s first carpenter, debuted it as his eponymous Gunton House Hotel. It was a stately two-story, white-clapboard oasis edged by very dusty, or very muddy, dirt streets.
Hotel guests could gaze north over the Boardman River onto West Bay. Of course, in the late 1800s the Boardman was far different from the channelled, tree-lined stream of today. It was much wider, its low banks often filled with jumbles of logs awaiting shipment, probably to Chicago.
And the bay front along which it ran was vastly different from today’s smooth, white beaches. By the later 1800’s it was filled with lumber mills, docks, railroad tracks, fruit packing facilities and other industrial enterprises. The sand tended to be more gray than white, while the bay’s then-murky waters covered significant amounts of industrial waste.
Some bay-front workers may have lived in apartments that ran along the west side of Gunton’s building. Facing Wellington Street, they provided lodging until around 2017. So those small homes may have been Traverse City’s longest lasting “affordable housing.” Presumably they had been updated several times over the decades.
During the heyday of that gritty bay front, in the 1890s, Gunton sold to J.R. Gowdy, who rechristened the building “The Occidental Hotel.” In 1904 the building was sold to Frank King, who in turn sold it to C. A. Gardner in 1923.
King (and later Gardner) used the old Gunton building as part of his grocery business. While each owner definitely ran a storefront grocery at 448 E. Front Street, it is unclear as to whether the old hotel itself was ever an actual grocery store. It does appear to have been used as storage space for those stores to the west, and perhaps for auto enterprises that were situated further east on Front Street.
Gardner’s store at 448 E. Front Street eventually became Jack’s Grocery, which suffered a fire sometime in the 1970s. When Jack’s was rebuilt the then-new building was set back from the street, where today it is the lively home of Little Fleet.
In the 1970s, after several quiet decades, the old Gunton House was reinvigorated. Extensive renovations changed the roof line and window openings, and significant changes were made to its northwest corner. But comparisons of the current building with vintage photos show that shadows of that early structure, including its footprint, remain.
Those renovations shifted the building’s use from storage and apartments, to apartments and a rotating roster of small businesses. Between the mid-1970s and 2000, at least fifteen different enterprises call 502 home. Those included Leland Stained Glass, Whimsicality Gifts and Design, Cabinetry Designs Unlimited, a realtor, an art store and a computer trainer, among other tenants.
In the 2000s, long-term businesses have included Front Street Tattoos, Lifer Skateboard Shop and Papers and Presents. Around 2017 the westside apartments were converted into office space.
Just as 502 E. Front has transformed over its 166 years, so too have the ways in its customers travel to Traverse City. In the twenty-first century visitors mostly arrive by car or plane. But when the Gunton House first opened, most lodgers would have arrived either by sail or steam. Or at least they would do so in the warmer months. In the 1800s and early 1900s West Bay almost always froze over in the winter.
Year-round travel was possible by foot or horse over centuries-old Indian trails, but they certainly were not conducive to the transport of large loads of goods or numbers of people.
When not frozen the bay would be filled with both steam and sailing ships. Those two great shipping styles overlapped for several decades. In the late 1860s sail still outnumbered steam on the Great Lakes, with about three sailing ships for every steam ship. Estimates vary, but there were likely over 1,800 sailing vessels plying the lakes in 1868, compared to something over 600 steam ships. But by 1900 those numbers had shifted, with perhaps 1,000 sailing vessels remaining, compared to over 1,700 steam ships.
By the mid-1860s, rudimentary stagecoach roads had been carved southwest towards Muskegon, and by the early 1870s they had expanded in all directions. Train travel arrived in 1872, with dirt auto roads appearing in the nineteen-teens, and paved highways in the 1920s.
Air travel appeared in 1929, with the first landings and take offs happening on Ransom Field, located atop Rennie Hill. Today that is the home of Grand Traverse Memorial Gardens Cemetery. In 1936 the airport moved southeast, to a location that, at the time, was “well out of town.” It remains there today, although some have concerns that it is no longer located far enough out of town.
So for a few, bright shining years in the middle of the 1900s, people could arrive in Traverse City by passenger ship or train, highway, or by plane. However, air service eventually led to the end of passenger ships as a regular form of travel. Air travel, improved roadways and relatively inexpensive cars also led to the demise of passenger trains. The last passenger train departed Traverse City in 1966.
Over parts of three centuries, 502 E. Front Street has transformed in shape, color and purpose. The town it watches over has also changed. Over a century ago its bay bustled with industry and ships. Today its now- sparkling waters are ringed by beckoning white beaches. One wonders what changes the old Gunton building might witness over the next 166 years.