EDITOR:

Regarding The House of Ludington, I don’t begrudge the owners of their need or desire to sell.

The situation, however, is nonetheless sad as mentioned in your recent editorial, but it is just a symptom of the bigger problem that is the decay of downtown ever since the mall was built years ago on Lincoln Road.

For anyone who was in Escanaba in the 1960s or earlier, the sadness comes from no longer having a bustling hub. Ludington Street was lined with vibrant businesses with The House anchoring the east end. It was the place to be, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, with Pat Hayes running the place and sitting behind a window in his chef’s outfit, as if. People came to see and be seen, dining and dancing. The bellmen, clad in their red waist coats, black slacks, white shirts and black bow ties, warmly greeted you as they helped ladies out of cars and held open the hotel door. They lent an air of class to our town, once heralded as The Riviera of the North on a billboard as you entered town, traveling west on US 2.

Memories of The House are necessarily tied to the once busy scene in downtown, especially on Friday nights when the stores were open later. Kids with nothing better to do would “bomb the drag,” repeatedly driving up and down Ludington Street, turning around near the House at one end, and at the A&W Root Beer stand at the other, where now stands a car wash. As with their parents at The House, they were on the drag to see and be seen.

My recollection of downtown is such that I often tell my wife I wish I could take her for a visit to one 1960s December Friday night in downtown Escanaba so she could see the Christmas decorations adorning the streets and store windows, and all the hustle and bustle in stores like the Fair Store, Gartner’s, Mata Brown, Montgomery Ward, Thyberg Jewelers, Fineman’s F&G, People’s Drug Store, West End Drug Store, Woolworth’s, Kresge’s, Neisner’s, J.C. Penney, Anderson-Bloom, Kiddy Korner Toy Store, The State Bank of Escanaba, First National Bank, Escanaba National Bank, PhotoArt, and Marco’s Pizzeria, just to name a few!

Apologies to those I left out, but you get the idea. For me, the sadness of The House is tied up in the memories of what once was. My memories are particularly personal as my family actually lived in The House, twice, for extended periods in the 1960s as we awaited housing to become available when my father, Forrest, was transferred there in 1960 to manage the Montgomery Ward store, and again in 1964 as we awaited completion of renovations in the current Henslee residence. It was pretty special getting up in the mornings and taking the glass elevator to the lobby, having a bellman and the desk clerk greet me as I began my walk to Franklin School….

But we can’t wallow in those memories. We can only cherish them as Escanaba moves forward. Escanaba’s best days are ahead of it. Hopefully, those days will somehow include The House restored to all its glory.

F. Stephen Henslee

Overland Park, Kan.