by Jeremy Rickli
Architect: Henry Leopold Ottenheimer
Location: Shelden Avenue & Huron Street, Houghton
Built: 1903
Contractor: Paul Mueller, Chicago; local superintendent, Herman Gundlach
The Leopold Building was developed for Nathan Leopold, one of the founders of the South Range State Bank. The newspaper described the building: “The building ranks with the finest business blocks in Houghton or the copper country.” It was occupied by a department store on the Shelden Street side and a bar on the Huron Street side, with offices on the second floor.1
The building, according to the plans, was rectangular in shape, two stories tall and five bays wide.2 The building is red brick with white-glazed brick trim. Pilasters separate the windows on the second floor. On the front, the end bays are differentiated, with a cornice-like white trim, and the three center bays have white panels over the windows. On the Huron Street side, white stripes in the brick decorate the first-floor wall.
Buildings by Henry Leopold Ottenheimer in the Copper Country
- Harris House 1909
- Leopold Building 1903
- South Range Bank 1903
- Allen Rees House 1900
- Shelden-Dee Block 1900
- Douglass House 1900
- James R. Dee Block 1899
Notes
- “Leopold Building Now Completed,” Daily Mining Gazette, 14 November 1903.
- Gundlach Collection, 85E, MTU Archives.