Baumgardner's Marble Works

In 1890 John Baumgardner supplied cemetery monuments and building and paving stones from his shop on the northeast corner of Detroit and Catherine Streets. His stepfather, German immigrant Anton Eisele, opened a marble works to your right on this side of the street in 1868. Behind the works, Eisele built a brick home that still stands at 216 Catherine.

By the time of Eisele's death in 1887 the business had expanded across the street to include the brick Italianate building and additions seen below. Note the carved stone lintels on the building in this photo and on Eisele's house. The brick barn in the background still stands on the corner of Fifth and Catherine with an 1887 date in its front gable. Among the first in Ann Arbor to use electricity, Baumgardner changed the firm's name to the Ann Arbor Electric Granite Works, acclaimed for an "electric polishing machine that gives such a high, mirror-like finish to his work."

Frame location: In Sculpture Park, southeast corner of Fourth and Catherine, facing northeast down Detroit Street

Collection info: OAAT-2, p48

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