On January 29, 1961, the Nease Memorial Church of the Nazarene was organized with 40 charter members. The congregation chose a flat, barren 4.5 acre site on the western edge of Midland, Michigan for its first church and purchased the land for the sum of $10,850....
The first discussion about the design of a structure to cover farmers selling their produce in the open parking lot at the foot of Ashman Street took place in March 1973. Those meeting notes describe a simple roof structure, 160 feet long by 30 feet wide, to be...
As early as 1965, the long-range plan for the Center called for a building with a museum, library, auditorium, classroom, workshop and related facilities. In 1970, three years after the completion of the Nature Observatory, Mr. Dow prepared a preliminary sketch...
The Nature Observatory (Nature Study Building) The inspiration to establish a place for the study of the natural environment in the Midland area first came to the members of the Midland Nature Club in 1963. Their search for a building and sanctuary site led them in...
Alden B. Dow began the design of a large standalone building for Smith’s Flowers in September 1954. The shop had been in its original location in the nearby Ashman Circle business district in Midland, Michigan for seven years. The new store would be situated just...
Just a year after completing the design of Messiah Lutheran Church in Bay City, Alden B. Dow began developing the first of a number of schemes for the Bay City Jewish Center in 1955. The first drawings showed a floorplan that followed the outlines of the...
Alden B. Dow began the drawings for a house for his lifelong friend, Peters “Pat” Oppermann, in 1957. Mr. Oppermann was a business leader in Saginaw and owner of Radio Center, an early radio shop that grew with the times into a full-service television and audio...
In the later years of his career, Alden B. Dow turned his attention to designing a number of structures to enhance the enjoyment of and upgrade the facilities of Dow Gardens. Throughout the 1970s he developed a Master Plan for the Gardens and added new bridges, a...
Midland Fire Station No. 1 is one of the 39 civic structures designed by Alden B. Dow during his career. He completed the working drawings on April 23, 1955, and in June the construction contract was awarded to the Charles Engelhardt Construction Company of Bay...
Alden B. Dow’s initial presentation drawing for a proposed Midland Hospital was dated August 1938, a full two years before the Midland Hospital Association was established. The Association organized the fund raising campaign to build the city’s first hospital in...
As World War II drew to a close, Alden B. Dow actively participated in the design of badly-needed, low-cost housing. Seeking an efficient and economical way to build homes, the Ingersoll Steel and Disc Division of the Borg-Warner Corporation of Kalamazoo produced...
A recent Facebook post about the University of Michigan Administration Building and its demolition prompted an interesting observation about how “un-Dow-like” the design of the building appeared. While the exterior displayed a composed order of squares and...