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(North Side of Street)

The photo on the right, of the back of the building, was taken shortly after the Ford factory was built on the site of the old Clarkston mills property. In the early development of the Village there were two streams on what was the Mill property providing power for two separate buildings. See Nelson W. Clark's original plat map and the 1872 Map of the Village which shows the Clinton River & the mill race and a saw mill to the north & the "flouring mill", a larger building behind the buildings which front on South Main Street. (Note: a mill race is a canal in which water flows to and from a mill wheel.) This map also shows a Railroad Street on the southwest side of the mill property. Railroad Street was vacated and became part of the property of the houses built on South Holcomb Street.

Old photos and tax records provide information about businesses which once stood on the alley which still runs from West Washington Street south to Depot Road. The alley was originally a part of the mill property. The largest mill building was on a site on the west side of this "public way" at the end of Mill Street which still extends west from South Main Street between 9 South Main and 15 South Main. The photo at the right, taken in 1999, shows the back of the existing addition to the building originally built as the Ford factory on the left with the alley and back of 27 South Main on the right.

Reportedly there was a school to the south of the Clarkston mill in the "old Richardson house". Clara Foster, (daughter of Horatio & Ann Pleydell Foster ?) or Anna Foster (?) was the teacher. There is at present no more information about this building, its site or appearance, or what happened to it. The house to the west, at 380 Depot Rd., was built in the 1980s and is not related to the "Richardson house".

Official Property Description:

• The north side of Depot Road from Main St. to Holcomb St. was originally a part of the Clarkston mill property in the Southwest 1/4 of Section 20 in Independence Township.

Significant Property History:

[A Synopsis Of Property Transfers Derived From Abstracts
(when available) And Periodic Changes In Ownership Or
Assessed Value Derived From Township Tax Records]

• Note: All the properties currently located in the Historic District were originally part of a tract registered by Butler Holcomb with the federal government on October 22, 1831. Thus, abstracts for these properties, when they exist, show the original transfer to be from the United States to Butler Holcomb and may also include references to then President Andrew Jackson.
• 1880 William Holcomb, west of the plaster mill race, west by Mrs. Phillips, T. S. Bird and himself, north by the Dam, south by Holcomb, assessed value $9250.
  Sylvester Phillips, north and east by Holcomb, south and west by Wm. Holcomb. 2 1/2 acres, assessed value $200.