Boulevard Park - Helen at East Lafayette

[renf]

Baseball entrepreneur G. A. Vanderbeck came from California to Detroit and secured a Western League franchise for the city. In early 1894, he hastily built a wooden park at the northwest corner of Helen and East Lafayette. Within three years, he built a larger park at Michigan and Trumbull. At present, the building occupying the space that was once Boulevard or League Park looks like a first generation auto plant.
Does any one know when that building was erected or what was produced there?

[EastsideAl]

I have often wondered about this ballpark and its actual location. It's almost invariably described as being at "Lafayette & Helen," but I've never been able to find a map that shows precisely where it stood [[it doesn't show on any of the Sanborn maps of the period), and I don't believe that any pictures of it exist.

A lot of my father's family are from that general neighborhood, and my grand-mother and great-grand-mother were both born nearby. I actually went to middle school a couple of blocks away from there, and being a kid fascinated with baseball history back then, walked around there a couple of times looking for the possible location of the ballpark. But I've never been able to gather any serious evidence of the place's actual location. All I really have is my grandfather's remembrance of his father telling him about going to ballgames on the Boulevard not far from Belle Isle. Of course, the big deal at the time was that the ballpark was built outside the city limits so that you could watch baseball, and drink beer, on Sundays.

Looking at that area more recently, the factory on the southwest corner of Lafayette and Helen, between Helen and Canton, was for a very long time the Gray Marine Engine works. I had a great-uncle who worked there for many years. Looking back at older reference materials, the building also seems to have been used by the Peninsular Screw Co., and perhaps the short-lived Northern Motor Car Co. The buildings facing Canton seem to date back before 1910, since they show on a 1910 Sanborn. These buildings are still in use as a storage facility. I've been in there a few times, and they do appear to be quite old factory buildings of wood frame construction.

Older maps show the Helen & Lafayette corner portion of this site as occupied by the car barns of the Fort Wayne & Elmwood streetcar co. But these appear to have been torn down some time around 1900.

On the northwest corner is the Indian Village laundry and dry cleaning plant that my grandmother worked at as a young person. The building behind it, at the corner of Lafayette and Canton, appears from Sanborn circa 1910 - 1915 as having been the Massnick-Phipps Engine factory. Later it was F.L. Jacobs, an auto parts company that also built washing machines and vending machines. It was built between 1900 and 1910.

The southeast corner appears to have been always occupied by residences and small shops. My father got his haircuts from a barber in this block for a very long time [[well into the 1980s). That guy had pictures in his shop of the building from the 1920s or even earlier.

However, I have always assumed, for lack of better evidence, that the ballpark stood on the northwest corner of Lafayette and Helen, between Helen and Grand Boulevard. This is mostly because the place was called Boulevard Park and my grandfather's second-hand reminiscences placed the ballpark within sight of the Boulevard. That block appears empty on older maps, and doesn't appear at all in the 1897 Sanborn. In 1901 the present-day Church of the Messiah was moved to that site from downtown, meaning that it was most likely empty at the time.

Could that have been because the baseball team had by then moved to Bennett Park at Michigan and Trumbull? Years ago I had good friends who were involved with Church of the Messiah and questioned them about this, but from their searches apparently their archives give no indication of the previous use of the land the church sits on. Just that the Episcopal Diocese bought the land in 1900 [[although it is unclear from whom) and moved the church there shortly thereafter.

I'm sure there's someone out there who knows more than me about this ballpark, which seems to be one of the most obscure parts of Detroit's baseball history. I'd certainly love to find out anything I can.

[renf]

The March 24, 1894 issue of The Sporting Life, published a substantial account of
the baseball park that G. A. Vanderbeck built for the Detroit team in the Western
League. This information strongly suggests the park was at the northwest corner
of this intersection.
If this url does not work well, send me a reply.
This Boulevard or League Park was used by the Detroit Creams or Detroit Tigers for only two years. By May of 1896, I believe they were playing their home games on the
former West Side hay market at Michigan and Trumbull.

https://mail.isr.umich.edu/exchange/...m.pdf?attach=1

[Homer]

access denied...............

[EastsideAl]

I can't open that article either [[get a popup asking for my U of M ID and password), but I wonder if they mean the northwest corner of Lafayette and Helen, or the northwest corner of Lafayette and Grand Boulevard?

[BVos]

The NW corner of Lafayette & the Blvd is Church of the Messiah. It was built in 1901 when parissioners moved the old St. Paul's Episcopal church building brick by brick from Congress & Shelby to the current location. So the timing could be right for the ball park to have been at Lafayette & the Blvd.

At the time [[turn of the century) this area was farm and marsh land. Most of the buildings east of the Blvd date post-1900 so land speculation with a ball park as a place holder/attraction to potential buyers is a likely senario.

[Hermod]

Looking at that area more recently, the factory on the southwest corner of Lafayette and Helen, between Helen and Canton, was for a very long time the Gray Marine Engine works. I had a great-uncle who worked there for many years. Looking back at older reference materials, the building also seems to have been used by the Peninsular Screw Co., and perhaps the short-lived Northern Motor Car Co. The buildings facing Canton seem to date back before 1910, since they show on a 1910 Sanborn. These buildings are still in use as a storage facility. I've been in there a few times, and they do appear to be quite old factory buildings of wood frame construction.

Gray Marine engines powered a lot f the inboard launches and cruisers built on the Great Lakes for many years. My grandfather had a small inboard runabout built by Mayea Boat works in Fair Haven which had a four cylinder Gray engine installed. That thing ran like a top.

My grandfather was general manager of Victor Screw Company in Detroit which merged with Peninsular Screw to form Victor-Peninsular. My grandfather became Shop Superintendent of the merged company. Victor-Peninsular was bought up by Allied Products and my grandfather did not care for the new management so he left after a few years to go into business for himself [[in 1929!!!!!!).

[EastsideAl]

I noticed a mistake in the long post I made above, but a little too late to correct it. Of course, I meant the northeast corner of Lafayette and Helen, between Helen and Grand Blvd. I guess I was thinking about the northwest corner of Lafayette and the Blvd.

However, I have always assumed, for lack of better evidence, that the ballpark stood on the northwest corner of Lafayette and Helen, between Helen and Grand Boulevard. This is mostly because the place was called Boulevard Park and my grandfather's second-hand reminiscences placed the ballpark within sight of the Boulevard. That block appears empty on older maps, and doesn't appear at all in the 1897 Sanborn. In 1901 the present-day Church of the Messiah was moved to that site from downtown, meaning that it was most likely empty at the time.

[Brock7]

The 1895 city directory lists the northeast corner of Helen and Champlain as "Detroit Base Ball Grounds". Champlain is the next street north and parallel to Fort, so I assume it's the same as Lafayette E.

[EastsideAl]

Thank you Brock! E. Lafayette was indeed known as Champlain back then, [[and the little piece of Monroe that remains between Helen and Canton is today Donald Pl.).

So that most likely settles the mystery. Boulevard Park was in the block where the Church of the Messiah sits today. A parsonage was also built later [[some time in the 1920s it seems) immediately to the north of the church.

From old Sanborns it appears that by 1915 on the rest of that area behind the church some small stores had been built facing Lafayette, an auto repair garage behind them facing onto Helen, and a few houses. The stores and garage are gone, and that's now a vacant lot, but there is at least one house still standing on Helen that's very likely located on what was the ballpark.

[Brock7]

There's a few pages about the beginning of the Tigers at League Park in this title at googlebooks.
A place for summer: a narrative history of Tiger Stadium By Richard Bak 1998

It includes a picture which isn't included in the scan of the book, unless it's just that my browser's unable to download for some reason. Maybe it's this one?

Although the book also says League[[Boulevard) Park was outside the city limits, this map from an 1889 directory shows it would have been inside the city line. Maybe it was near enough the outskirts that the city fathers looked the other way when beer was sold on Sunday.


The book mentions that baseball was played by a different league team for a few months during the summer of 1891 not too far away at Owens Park, which was outside the city line, but there were no Sunday games.

[renf]

Detroit had an entry in the Northwesten League for the '91 season. They opened on May 9 but the team folded on June 6. The entire league folded in July. Professional baseball was not to return to Detroit until 1894. Undoubtedly the great recession of 1892 played some role in that.
Perhaps the 1891 Detroit Wolverines played their few home games at Owens Park. That may have been located at the mainland foot of the Belle Isle bridge in the recently renovated Gabriel Richard Park. Not very much has been written about professional baseball in Detroit in the years between the loss of the National League franchise and the obtaining of an American League franchise. Sunday baseball was prohibited in Detroit until about 1910 when Frank Navin was able to convince city officials that the Blue Law should not be enforced. That explains why the early Tiger teams played some of their American League Sunday games in Springwells, River Rouge and even a few in Columbus and Grand Rapids.

[Hermod]

Detroit had an entry in the Northwesten League for the '91 season. They opened on May 9 but the team folded on June 6. The entire league folded in July. Professional baseball was not to return to Detroit until 1894. Undoubtedly the great recession of 1892 played some role in that.
.

Much of organized baseball collapsed during the 1891 season. The Player's League folded before the season began and the American Association folded after the end of the 1891 season. For the rest of the 1890s, the National League was the only major league in baseball. All of the minor leagues were in a state of turmoil. The 1893 "panic" didn't help things, but baseball itself was in a world of hurt [[and not particularly honest and above board).

[EastsideAl]

Perhaps the 1891 Detroit Wolverines played their few home games at Owens Park. That may have been located at the mainland foot of the Belle Isle bridge in the recently renovated Gabriel Richard Park.

Owen Park is just south of Indian Village at the foot of Iroquois. I played there a lot when I was a kid.

It would have probably seemed like a good place for something like a ballpark back then, because a horse racing track [[Detroit Driving Club) was just north of there on the other side of Jefferson, where Indian Village was later built.

The site of Gabriel Richard Park had the Kling Brewery on it then [[and would until 1920), and the adjacent Beller's Beer Garden, that eventually morphed into a series of amusement parks. My grandfather sold papers at that amusement park as a child.