Ann Arbor Tribune Building, (Kleinschmidt Insurance Company), 1931

206 East Huron Street

Ann Arbor Tribune Building, (Kleinschmidt Insurance Company), 1931

The distinctive Art Deco facade was added to this brick building in the early 1930s when the Ann Arbor Tribune occupied this building, on the old site of what had been Fred and Mary Heusel's City Bakery since the 1890s. The Tribune was the outgrowth of a series of German language newspapers, most directly Die Neue Post, published by Eugene J. Helber. Helber was outspokenly pro-German during the initial years of World War I, before the United States joined the conflict. After some difficulties with the federal authorities, he deemed it wise to change the paper to the English language and to design a new masthead. In the late 1930s the paper became the weekly Washtenaw Post-Tribune and moved its offices a few doors away. In 1937 the Tribune lost its young reporter-editor, Arthur Gallagher, to the Ann Arbor Daily News (now the Ann Arbor News), where he remained until he retired as Editor-in-Chief in 1976.

The Springer family bought the building in 1939 for its insurance offices, which later became the Springer-Kleinschmidt Agency. The Springer name is now gone and the Kleinschmidt Agency owns and occupies the building.

Although changes were made to the interior when it was converted to offices, the old molded metal walls and ceilings of the 1890s remain in place under new paneling and tile.