Monday, January 18, 2010

A Dairy near Dupont and Dayton


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JWilly has a question:

Up to the fifties, there was a dairy on the north side of Dayton Street, east of Dupont. In my recollection, it was a dark brick single-story building, at least for the frontage on Dayton. I think it was either Pure-Seal or Sealtest. I think I recall it having a lunch counter. Anyone have any photos or recollections?
This intersection was one of the most shocking when I was in Flint this summer. It didn't help that there was a power outage and none of the streetlights was working that day.



19 comments:

  1. It might have been the Arctic dairy they sold Sealtest products.

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  2. use the google streetview to rotate around that intersection. Damn! They need to tear down those burned out buildings NOW!

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  3. I thought the same thing when I saw them. I'm sure it's tough when they're privately owned. There are houses all over the city just as bad, but it's a long process for the city to tear down privately owned structures, no matter how bad they are.

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  4. You actually went to that intersection and lived to tell about it?

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  5. Looking down Dupont, isn't that where the Civic Park Tavern was? There was a "Five and Dime" shop on Dayton I used to love where I'd buy Xmas presents for my family when I was a kid in the early '60s. I also remember walking a sled from Bassett to the grocery store on that corner to bring back food after a big snow storm. Kroger perhaps?

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  6. Sealtest comes to mind.......it was there in the early and mid-fifties; across Dayton from the A&P. I also find excuses to drive thru that area when back in town.

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  7. I believe those burned out buildings have been tonr down by the landbank, and it is now just a grassy lawn.

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  8. That would be good news, corner office. It was pretty discouraging to see them in June.

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  9. According to my Dad, who lived in Civic Park in the 20s and early 30s and was a retailer in Flint for several decades after WWII, LeMieux's Drugstore (sp?) was one of the stores in that burned-out section.

    A Rexall (drugstore franchise organization) history on the Net mentions it, and an obit for Michael Olenik at MLive mentions that he owned it for a number of years, until 1968.

    Any other info?

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  10. JWilley, My cousin (Birnie Leveque) owned the drug store at one time. I explained in another comment on here how, when he was robbed by thugs and told them "take anything,but don't hurt anyone" they did....then fired a shot at him blowing a gallon jug out of his hand. He locked the place up and closed it. He then operated Sunset Drugs in Flushing until he retired. When I was a kid, I used to walk up to that store and pick up the Sunday issue of the Journal before they were open and leave the change on the bundle like everyone else did. In the fifties.....

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  11. The building on the corner with the black sign was the location of the LeMieux Drugstore. The office just above it was the office for the son of the drugstore owner. His name was/is Dr. Leslie LeMieux. Dr. LeMieux became my doctor in the latter part of the 1950's and he still was when I left Flint in early 1963. This was a really pleasant area to live. My house was nearby on Forest Hill Avenue across from Haskell Community center.

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  12. The memory of taking the sled to the store from Bassett after a big snow storm is a vivid one for me also. I remember pulling our sled across Bassett Park to get our Christmas tree at the lot near the ice skating rink.

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  13. Its "funny" how avoiding a near miss disaster imbeds a memory in your head that stays. It was in either July or August of 1956 that my Dad refused to let me walk up Dayton Street from Mason to Dupont to buy two sticker books at Limeaux's Pharmacy (25 cents each; one on Dinosaurs and the other on Davy Crockett) because the sky looked ominous. I went to my room and sulked. While I was sitting pouting in my room over the sticker books, moments later a series of 14 tornados hit around Central Michigan with at least 6 in Flint. I think one hit close enough to where I was intending to go to Limeaux's Pharmacy to shatter windows in the nearby A&P. When I finally got the OK to go later that same afternoon, Limeaux was closed because of no electricity from the storm. I finally got the books the next Saturday and still have the Davy Crockett one packed away somewhere.

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  14. I've been virtually "walking" around the expanded Civic Park neighborhood with Google Earth (in full screen mode), going by my old friends houses, using the same routes I took back in the '60s and early '70s. (It makes me wonder if any of our Boonesfarm empties are still behind any garages...) This is all being done from the east coast and what an experience! Anyone know if any "holdouts" still live there from back in the old days?

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  15. I know one family on Bassett Place that my family knew in the late seventies who are still there. That's it for me.

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  16. BoonesFarm... too funny... as a teen, how could you resist "Tickle Pink"? Don't forget Mad Dog in that handy pint size too. ;)

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  17. I found old, sealed, never filled sealtest milk containers in my garage when I moved in. The street name is on the container-Walnut street. I've wondered if the Sloan museum may want them or sell them to a collector. Except for being a little dusty they are in mint condition.

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  18. I have several photographs of my mom shopping at a grocery store. I called the album A Trip to Weoooo. The cashier is wearing a coat that says A&P. The photos were from 70's when I wanted to be a photographer.

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  19. My step father worked at the dairy and I worked in the summer at the soda fountain making sundaes and cherry cokes and of course milk shakes.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.