What a beautiful new bathroom!
Right next to the parking lot east of the volleyball court is a two-stall bathroom building. Very fancy, and convenient for we who play volleyball by the bay during the summer months. And there are a lot of us. If you drive by on weekday evenings between June and August, there are games going constantly from 5:00 to 9:00.
Just so you know right where I am talking about:
Another view of these lovely new facilities with the courts in the background:
I noticed the historical plaque between the restroom and the bay. In 1901, the National Grocery Company of Grand Rapids decided to build a wholesale grocery to distribute all their goods (flour, Twinkies, that sort of thing) to all of northern Michigan. In 1902, the Musselman Grocer Company opened its doors.
That image, from the TADL Local History Collection, shows the grocery warehouse in all its early 20th century glory. Its location made sense, being near the railroad lines and the Hannah, Lay and Co. docks, where it could easily receive and send goods. As they explain on the huge painted signs, Musselman Grocer Co. were grocers, imports and jobbers. (A jobber is someone who buys goods from wholesales and sells them to retailers. I have known this fact for all of, oh, five minutes.)
And let's peak at the inside, also from the TADL collection:
It changed hands after 25 years and became the Grand Traverse Grocer Company. 25 years after that, it switched from grocery to lumber and became the Lumber Dealer's Warehouse.
Times change, and Traverse City was cleaning up its waterfront. In 1969, the city demolished the warehouse and the area became a park, which it remains today. It's an interesting twist that the area where we play volleyball and swim was once devoted the commerce and industry.