The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Hotels once thrived in Milan
PUBLISHED: February 7, 2008
Milan was a great place for hotels more than a century ago. Today's column will be a hotel tour starting with the Braman Hotel, then a quick visit to many other places in town where a weary traveler could expect some rest. We'll end the tour at the Milan Hotel, shown in a drawing from the 1874 atlas of Washtenaw County.
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Thomas and Hannah Braman arrived in Milan in about 1833, according to a biography they provided in their later years. Hannah was just 17 years old at the time and her husband was 34. They bought some farm land on the south side of West Main Street. Their farm land had a dirt road on one side and a river on the other.
Soon after arriving, on May 24, 1835, the Bramans started their family. The new arrival, Andrew, learned some carpentry and farming, but running the hotel was his first love.
Located at 141 W. Main St., the Braman Hotel is still there. It's about the same as when it was built, except that the third floor has been removed. Late in the 1800s, the building suffered a small fire, and getting rid of the third story was the way they fixed it. It has been a residence ever since.
John Gaines says his house still has the 6-foot-by-6-foot massive chestnut beams that form the basic walls. These are vertical beams. Gaines told me he has seen the inside of the walls in some places, and the beams are hand-hewn, cut by saws without any electricity. Those giant logs were covered with plaster on the inside.
A few old glass beer bottles showed up in the back yard, he adds, apparently souvenirs from the building's past as a tavern.
By the time a census taker stopped by in 1850, Thomas Braman was using a nickname and called himself "Horace." He was 50. His wife, Hannah, was 33. They had two children, Andrew, 15, and Alonzo, 10.
The hotel business must have been a tough startup. When asked his occupation, Braman told the census taker he was a carpenter and joiner. He didn't say he ran a hotel. Maybe he helped hand-saw those huge beams.
Before he set up his hotel, people traveling the dirt-path "highway" between Monroe and Jackson would have stopped for the night at any farmhouse along the way. Many farm families were willing to do this type of informal hosting and the guests no doubt gave some cash "gifts" as a thank you.
Gradually, as the stage coach drivers realized a hotel was available, they would have planned for the Braman Hotel. In the earliest years, I don't know of any other hotel in the area other than farmhouses.
Braman generously allowed church groups to use his third floor ballroom for services on Sunday. Besides dances, the third floor came in handy for townhall meetings, parties, or nearly any gathering that was too big for a house.
While the Braman Hotel was open for business, someone, possibly Samuel Dexter, opened the Commercial Hotel just across the street at 54 W. Main St. The Commercial Hotel is still there, and looks like a regular house. Until recently, it was home to Aid in Milan and before that it housed the medical offices of Dr. Hannum.
One of the earliest hotels I have heard of is the Edwards Hotel, which supposedly stood on what is now Tolan Street. It was later moved to the space between the bakery and 52 E. Main St. It burned down, and then Dr. Emmit Pyle built his house/hospital at 52 E. Main St., which still stands.
I am suspicious that there may have been a hotel right about there near Tolan Street because the 1850 census shows Henry Tolan, at the age of 33, with the occupation "innkeeper." He was married to Caroline, 30, and they had four children under the age of 10.
Henry Tolan was one of the earliest residents of Milan. The late Warren Hale, who wrote history columns in this newspaper every week for almost 30 years, spoke frequently about Tolan. The man was a pharmacist, planted all sorts of weeds and bushes for medicinal purposes, and served as postmaster. While taking care of the mail, he re-named the town "Tolanville."
Selling bits of bark and dry leaves, along with the occasional jug of booze, may not have been the greatest way to make a living. So perhaps he was taking in tired travelers at the Edwards Hotel or some other place.
There was another hotel in Milan in the 1800s -- the Babcock Hotel. A long wooden structure, it occupied the space now taken up by the first stores on East Main Street, north side. According to what Hale told me, the people who ran the Babcock Hotel raised chickens in the back yard. If anyone ordered a chicken dinner, the chef would run out the back door, grab a bird and cook it.
Things went downhill for the Babcock Hotel when they tried to drill a well for clean water. Hale says they drilled right through their chicken coop area, causing chicken doo-doo to mix with the water source. The result was a lot of sick people at the Babcock Hotel.
In 1896, George Minto ended the Babcock Hotel's problems. He cut it in half, and moved it away, making room for his men's clothing store. His store is still on the northeast corner downtown, occupied by a medical clinic. The Babcock Hotel is still located in Milan, too. The west half sits at 130 Church St. and the east half is at 236 Hurd St.
The most famous hotel on Main Street was built in 1901 by Walter F. Stimpson, a Saline Township farm boy who made it big designing scales. His factories produced scales of all sizes -- to weigh a small piece of chocolate or to weigh a wagonload full of pumpkins.
The Stimpson Hotel dominated the landscape in downtown Milan right from the start. Business and professional offices loved the hotel, and so did some retailers. There were 10 hotel rooms on the second floor, leaving the lower floor and main floor available for all kinds of business. Later the building was occupied as a German restaurant and today it is waiting for a new owner.
At the south end of Milan, the railroad station created lots of demand for hotels. There was the Railroad Hotel on Wabash Street. It's still there, but changed. Look for the first structure on the right as you travel south past the tracks.
There's the Webster Hotel, built in about 1905, at 372-374 Wabash St. It's still there and it looks like a hotel.
The Stevens Hotel was across Redman Road from the train station. It was operated by William Frank Stevens, who was born in 1854. That building is gone.
Finally, there is the Milan House Hotel, shown today in a drawing from the Washtenaw County Atlas of 1874. Where was it located? Is it possible that this was later called the Commercial Hotel? Who built the Milan House hotel? If anyone knows, please call me.
The proprietor, Lyman Burnham, was born in 1828 and served in the Civil War. He certainly didn't make a lifelong career in the hotel business. A few years after the drawing was published, he told a census worker his occupation was "wheelwright." That fits perfectly with the history of Milan's fire barn, which started out when the village of Milan purchased Burnham's carriage shop.
Burnham also achieved fame in the story about the sugar machine scandal, where some Milan residents were busted for selling stock in a fake sugar processor. But that story will have to wait for another day.
Martha Churchill is a member of the Washtenaw County Genealogical Society. She can be reached at 439-4055 or by e-mail at MilanHistory@yahoo.com.
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