Razed building has history tracing back to early days of Rogers City
The familiar dilapidated white building on First Street, with colorful artwork on the side, is a thing of the past. It was built sometime between 1912 and 1920, according to accounts in the Presque Isle Advance and the register of deeds ownership records and was unceremoniously razed a few weeks ago.
Originally it was a general goods store and operated under the name Rygwelski & Kowalski when Steve Rygwelski took on a partnership with Valentine Kowalski. Earliest records show that the property was owned in 1909 by Julius and Jennie Gumm and they sold lots #1, 2,3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 to Charles Pagels of the village of Rogers. The property on the corner of First Street and Woodward Avenue is 536 South First Street, or lot number one of Block four of Gumm?s edition to the village of Rogers.
In 1912 the Pagels sold lot one through seven to Ludwig Gryki of Calcite, a widower, for $500. By 1915, Gryki took another wife, Annie, and sold lot one to John and Michalina Nowicki for $300. The Nowickis sold lot one in 1916, just one year later, to Valentine Kowalski and Steve Rygwelski for $600; ?with certain unrecorded land contract of April 29, 1915 between John and Michalina Nowicki and Cash Nowicki and Joseph Taratuta who all signed over to Valentine Kowalski and Steve Rygwelski,? as stated in the recorded deed book of the same year. An advertisement in the Advance dated January 14, 1920 shows Rygwelski and Kowalski were in business at that time selling meats and other ?sanitary? foods, as the ad stated.
BY 1921, Valentine and Stacy Kowalski and Steve Rygwelski sold an undivided one-half of lot one to Steve Rygwelski for $1. On September 26, 1921 Steve and Olive Rygwelski sold lot one to Valentine and Stacy Kowalski for $2,500. Also in the June 2, 1921 edition of the Advance, an article noted that a businessman named F.M. Netkowski was closing out the stock of his business, located somewhere on First Street, because of his wife?s ill health. He later was to become a partner the Rygwelskis, just not yet.
On December 21, 1921 Valentine and Stacy Kowalski sold lot one to John and Flora Jill for $1, excepting a $2,500 mortgage in fulfillment of a land contract between the parties. Also on December 21, 1921, according to the register of deed books, John and Flora Jill sold to Valentine and Stacy Kowalski the undivided one-half interest in lot one for $2,500. In between time, an Advance advertisement dated May 4, 1922 celebrated the opening day as May 6 for a new grocery department for Netkowski & Rygwelski with 15 pounds of sugar for $1. Apparently the two had formed a partnership at a different location on the same First Street as lot number one was located.
BY JUNE 8, 1922, an advertisement for the lot one store was under Kowalski and Jill, and by the deed records, on November 13, 1922, John and Flora Jill sold the undivided one-half interest in lot one to Valentine and Stacy Kowalski for $2,500. The advertisement listed six pounds of ?good bulk coffee? for $1. An advertisement dated December 14, 1922 shows the business name as ?Valentine Kowalski? with all the foods necessary for a Christmas dinner. On March 27, 1924, Steve and Olive Rygwelski sold lot one to Valentine and Stacey (now spelled with an ?e? in her name) Kowalski for $2,500. On March 28, 1924, one day later, Valentine and Stacey Kowalski sold lot one to Martin and Francis Gabrysiak for $5,900.
An Advance advertisement has a large Netkowski & Rygwelski Fourth of July sale in the June 24, 1926 edition with 10 pounds of sugar for 68 cents. An Advance article dated August 11, 1927, states that by then Netkowski and Rygwelski had been in partnership for a few years and were selling out their stock of general merchandise to an A. Immerman of Bay City and A. Leventhal of Saginaw, who were to continue the store?s operation. IT ALSO stated the present store had been built some 15 years earlier, which would put the building date at some time in 1912, as good a guess date as any so far. By October 13, 1927, Leventhal was selling out the entire Netkowski & Rygwelski stock which included dry goods, clothing, shoes, groceries, furnishings and general merchandise.
Little is known about what transpired after that, but an advertisement appeared in the December 24, 1931 edition of the Advance under the name of Stanley Rygwelski, 536 S. First Street in Rogers City, for fresh poultry, geese, ducks, turkey, and chicken, meats and groceries. According to Richard (Dick) Rygwelski, now the present owner of Rygwelski?s market located further down First Street, Stanley or ?Steve? was his grandfather, and Herman was his father. According to Dick?s accounts, his family moved out of the building in 1941 (Labor Day) and moved to the present Rygwelski?s IGA location.
?I was born in 1939 and I remember living in the building upstairs,? Dick said. ?I was born across the street in the big Haselhuhn home, and was two years old when we moved out, but I remember living in the building.? On October 8, 1945 Martin Gabrysiak, now widowed, sold lot one to Leo J. and Annabelle Greka for $1 and ?other valuable considerations.?
?HE OWNED several buildings besides Greka?s Tavern,? said Betty Zimmer, Greka?s granddaughter. ?It was always a beautifully kept building, as I remember it as a small child.? According to Zimmer, the building was occupied for many years by Ferris Parsons as a photographic studio. ?I can remember looking in and seeing all his beautiful photos,? Betty remembered. ?He worked for the Disney Studios, you know.? Betty?s grandmother, Annabelle Greka, after a while, remodeled an upstairs apartment. ?It was the most beautiful apartment,? Betty said. ?My grandmother always used the finest quality when she built her projects…but the only trouble
Betty?s mother Marjorie (Onie) Kowalski remembers as a very small child visiting the building when it was occupied by Herman Rygwelski?s parents, (Steve and Olive) in the 1920s. That would have been Richard Rygwelski?s grandparents. There were always renters upstairs, and later after Ferris Parsons moved out, it became a pizza restaurant, operated by John Pruden, who had a worker who had a little extra curricular activity going when he shot a cow, got caught, and had to be physically removed from the building to be put under arrest.
?As I remember it, there was always something interesting going on in that building,? Zimmer said. She even wrote a poem some years back, published in her third book of poems titled ?Short-Haired Poems.? A special thanks to the Rev. Gerald Micketti for all his reseasch made available courtesy of Dick Rygwelski, and to Janet Lamb for her help in the register of deeds office.
