SCHAEFER NEAR SIX MILE RD - DETROIT

I am looking through a book given to me as a gift recently. The name of the book is " Fading ads of Detroit. It was written in 2018.

The book is made up of pictures of many older buildings all over Detroit Michigan. These are buildings that have the names and other adverting painted on them for the business's that at one time occupied them. The book also has stories about those businesses

While flipping through the book recently a picture on the bottom half of page eighty-nine catches my eye. The side of the building has large painted letters which reads Wrigley's Super Market. Wrigley's was a supermarket chain in the Detroit area from the mid to late 1900's. Something about this picture seems familiar to me. The picture of this building is next to a vacant lot. I feel like I know what used to stand on this empty lot. The caption on the next page says that this store was on Schaefer Highway south of McNichols Road, [McNichols Road is also known as Six Mile Road.}

What once stood on the vacant lot next to Wrigley's was a very nice movie theatre called The Mercury. The Mercury theatre opened June 11,1941. The lobby and the auditorium were decorated with very modern murals that looked like outer space.

In the 1950's I went to the Mercury on Saturday afternoons. I believe the admission was twenty cents. I seem to remember they sold ten cent candy for eleven cents. I am not positive of this fact but if that's what they charged I'm fine about it. They had to make some money.

In the 1960's I went to the Mercury on dates. I saw two of the early James Bond movies starring Sean Connery at the Mercury. The Mercury was demolished in 1997.

We know the Wigley's market was next door to the Mercury. Next to Wrigley's was a Cunningham's Drug Store. Cunningham's was a drug store chain with stores throughout the Detroit area. They had been around since the early part of the 1900's. i believe about 1970 they had either closed or sold all the stores.

Next to the Cunningham's at the very corner of Six Mile and Schaefer was a Federal's Department Store. Federals opened their first store in 1929. Federals grew to fifty-four stores. The chain started to fail in the early 1970's. In 1980 the company went into liquidation. The remaining stores were closed forever.

A couple of personal notes about Federal's. My father worked for that company for over twenty years. On a Sunday in 1980 I believe they closed the last stores. He was a manager at one of those stores.

In the mid 1960's while going to college I sold shoes for two years in the lower level at that very Federal's at Six Mile and Schaefer.

Just a little walk down memory lane.

WRITTEN BY

RON TURETT