The Chelsea Standard
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Time to celebrate
With industry now in the history books, buildings being restored for new uses
By Kathy Clark, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: September 27, 2007
Like the old adage for the month of March, "It comes in like a lion, and out like a lamb," the factories on North Main Street, now known as the Clocktower Complex, roared in with a stove factory, and quietly left in 2003 with robots welding car seat frames.
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Beginning in 1890, machinery was invented or utilized to make oil stoves, ball bearings, screw machines, automobiles, airplane engines, ammunition, screw machine products, formed-wire products and springs.
Chelsea's industrial companies survived for more than 100 years through many changes and a few bankruptcies.
While riding the highs and lows of the automobile industry, they boosted local employment and generated wealth for the major occupants of the factory complex.
That list includes Glazier Stove Company, Flanders Manufacturing, Lewis Spring & Axle, Central Fibre Products, Chelsea Products (which became Dana), Federal Screw Works, Rockwell-Standard and Chelsea Industries.
Factories were operating at full capacity during and after World War II into the 1970s, until a slump in Michigan's economy and the automobile industry affected our industries and downtown businesses.
Central Fibre Products, owned by Avis Industrial Corp. since 1964, was closed in 1980 in a downsizing of their business holdings.
Chelsea Industries Inc. and Rockwell-Standard Chelsea Industries primarily formed wire parts for seating for automotive and agricultural equipment.
From 1980 to 1997 Jack Dunn and Dr. James Botsford were the largest shareholders. They took over the Central Fibre buildings with 100 employees located in the Chelsea factory space.
Dunn, of Dunn & Associates Inc., now located in downtown Chelsea, was a central player in Chelsea's more recent industrial history.
He was plant manager at Central Fibre Products Co., which closed in 1980, and became president of Chelsea Industries.
1983 Rockwell Auction
In a recent interview, Dunn was asked what machinery was once inside the factories.
He located a brochure about a machinery auction at Rockwell in 1983, labeled, "Major manufacturer of mechanical springs, the assets of Rockwell International, Mechanical Devices Division, Chelsea."
Twenty-four pages showed huge four-slide wire-forming machines, spring coilers, wire hookers, spring grinders, heat-treating equipment, punch presses and all other tools used in the Rockwell company.
If one could have had the opportunity to walk through the Rockwell factory to see this machinery in production, this brochure showed they may have felt awed and dwarfed among the more than 200 machines.
The auction cleared the factory complex of all industrial machinery.
With a vision for new use, Chelsea Industries stepped up to the plate in 1987 and bought the abandoned Rockwell-Standard spring plant buildings from Rockwell Associates of Ann Arbor.
Dunn described the last uses of the factory buildings after the machinery sale.
His wife Nancy managed rental of the space and directed the refurbishing of the entire complex.
According to Dunn, it had complete electrical service and about 100,000 square feet of usable space was unoccupied.
"Businesses such as Merkel's Carpet Warehouse and the Print Shop, which were destroyed by fire, found new homes there," Dunn said.
"Abrasive Finishing, which also lost a major facility to fire, temporarily moved part of its manufacturing there. Other tenants were Rotary Tool of Detroit; Northern Lights, an industrial and commercial painting business and DaJo Sign Co.
"BookCrafters graphic arts training center, Chelsea Community Hospital, Gambles and Federal Screw Works all rented storage space," Dunn added.
"At their peak, the buildings were filled with over 20 tenants."
'Gymnasium' and two foundries.
Dunn cleared up the "Gymnasium" nickname for what was originally the Glazier Stove Co.'s Brass Foundry building constructed in 1902.
"The name came about when a fire burned out the entire second floor and roof," he said.
"The foundry was re-roofed, but the second-story floor was not replaced. Employees installed a basketball net on the high walls to shoot hoops during their breaks."
After its initial use as a foundry molding sheets of brass for stoves, then automobiles, the facility was used to store raw materials and other supplies.
Then, with a sigh of old age, the 100-year-old building accidentally collapsed during McKinley Properties' restoration attempt in 2006.
In that same year, the 1895 Iron Foundry, with the old sign "B&B," for "Brightest & Best Stoves," was removed during renovation of the Clocktower Complex.
In 1997 partners Dunn, John Mayne and Dr. James Botsford sold Chelsea Industries to Stonebridge Industries Inc. of Sylvania, Ohio.
The Rockwell buildings, along with the Clocktower, were purchased by McKinley Associates founder Ronald N. Weiser.
First a brewery, then robots
Two of the last tenants of the Clocktower were unique.
Real Ale Company, started by home-brewer Larry Bell, set up the first microbrewery to open in Michigan in 1982.
A pioneer in Michigan's microbrewery industry, Bell moved the business in 1985 to Kalamazoo and renamed it the Kalamazoo Brewing Co., (now known as Bell's Brewing Co.), one of the largest microbreweries in the Midwest and maker of Bell's Beer.
I asked Jack Dunn what the colorful machines were making on the first floor of the Clock tower which I had seen while working at the newspaper.
They worked well into the night, just as Walter and Helen Mae Leonard did next door while publishing The Chelsea Standard and Dexter Leader out of the Welfare Building.
"Robots is the best name for them," Dunn said. "Chelsea Industries installed the hydraulic machinery to weld car seat frame assemblies," he said.
The robots were removed in 2003.
The McKinley company continues to renovate the former industrial complex and its 200,000 square feet of space.
The development is filling up with a mix of retail stores, offices and restaurants, centered around a beautiful courtyard with fountain.
Some of the more notable tenants include The Chelsea Teddy Bear Co. and Sleeping Bear Press.
Still standing tall as the cornerstone of the development is one of the most famous landmarks in Michigan — the Clocktower.
It reminds us all of years gone by, and the many former and current tenants and employees that have called the complex home.
It is a symbol of our community's strong industrial roots, while its chorus of incremental chimes helps to keep us punctual.
The Clocktower was the crowning point of Frank Glazier's era of power and development. He left us with a truly magnificent monument, the centerpiece of his vision for Chelsea.
It began over a century ago, and is now being completed with the help of Ambassador Weiser and McKinley.
The legacy will live on, and in another century there will be more stories to tell - perhaps another celebration.
Just like the Clocktower, only time will tell.
All photographs used in the Clocktower series have been reproduced by the Chelsea Historical Museum, 312 N. Main St., inside the Gourmet Chocolate Cafe.
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