The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Baseball was big in Milan in 1924
Martha Churchill
PUBLISHED: March 13, 2008
There is no need to guess what date this picture was taken. The photographer wrote "1924" in big letters at the top of the photo. No one is here to dispute that fact.
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And you can't dispute that baseball was huge in Milan a few generations ago. Sure, people love baseball even today, but how many companies supply a coach and a company car for their employees to swing a bat?
While admiring that car parked behind the men, note the sign on the back announcing the Ideal Furnace Co. The car was a convertible. Pay attention to the ragtop.
The uniforms displayed here are impeccable. Everything matches, and the clothes appear brand new. Each player was equipped with a matching hat, a button on top for style.
In 1924, obviously the Ideal Furnace Co. was willing to invest whatever it took to win at the old ball park. Other businesses in town sent out their male employees for combat on the baseball diamond, giving local residents a reason to get out and watch the action.
Ideal, located on Plank Road at Dexter Street, occupied a space where Bimac is located today. That piece of property was purchased originally by Walter F. Stimpson in 1902 for use as a scales factory and foundry.
Having a foundry next to a railroad track worked out beautifully. When Stimpson was through with it in 1906, Detroit Register Co. snapped it up. Detroit Register needed to melt iron into heating registers, and a foundry was just the place to do it.
Detroit Register didn't last long in Milan. Probably by 1910, Ideal had taken over the foundry. Ideal Furnace Co. was so popular that the village of Milan renamed Lamkin Street in 1918, making it Ideal Street.
In the late 1800s, Charles Gauntlett established a baseball field on his property along the east side of Platt Road north of Main Street. He was born there in 1853, the youngest of eight children. His parents, James and Mary Gauntlett, arrived in York Township from England about six years before he was born, and started farming along Platt Road.
By the time Charles was old enough to walk, his mother had died. His father, left to struggle with a baby by himself, soon remarried. This produced a younger half-brother, Archie, for Charles.
Upon retirement, James and Annis found a house on West Main Street, leaving Charles with the farm. He converted a large chunk of land into a racehorse extravaganza, with full-size bleachers for the convenience of spectators. The grandstands made a terrific backdrop for local racehorse owners wanting to be photographed, so the structures live on today in photographs that were passed down the generations.
One news report says Charles Gauntlett sold his last race horse in 1905. It could be that his park and recreational area continued on another 20 years to be enjoyed by these Ideal Furnace Co. ball players. He lived until 1933, and had his home in the same location all his life. An obituary commented that he was buried in a cemetery just a few hundred feet from where he was born.
Today, we think of Wilson Park as the place for baseball, basketball and a bunch of other sports. Back in the 1920s, baseball teams looking for a place to pitch a fastball probably turned to Gauntlett's recreational area. Today, the old ball fields are under some apartment buildings, or nearby.
Charles Gauntlett had an older sister, Harriet, who married into the Holcomb family. Her great-grandson, the late Paul Holcomb, told me once that he remembered walking along West Main Street next to the area Gauntlett used for race horses. Holcomb would have been 14 years old when this picture was snapped of the Ideal baseball team.
Holcomb recalled seeing a fence along the sidewalk, and he never had the chance to go inside. So, the baseball diamonds and grandstands were obviously private property in the Gauntlett family.
Enough explanation. Play ball!
Martha Churchill is a member of the Milan Area Historical Society. She can be reached at 439-4055 or Milanhistory@yahoo.com.
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