Rochester Post | Published May 5, 2026
ROCHESTER — Natural features, such as hills or trees, offered early Rochester residents birds-eye views of their surrounding landscape. Without modern technology, these vantage points were harder to come by. This photograph offers a rare view of downtown Rochester from above sometime between 1901 and 1914. The perspective is from south of the Paint Creek bridge, on the east side of north Main Street.
The intersection of Main and what is now University Drive is visible with the white facade of the St. James Hotel on the southwest corner, where Bean and Leaf is today. There are even two people sitting in front of the hotel, possibly waiting to catch an interurban street car. The building next to the St. James Hotel dates this photograph to before 1914, the year the Idle Hour Theater moved from across the street into a brand-new brick building. Behind the houses in the bottom right corner there are clothes hanging out to dry. Across from St. James Hotel, there is a horse-drawn wagon parked on East Fifth Street. The business block next to the wagon was built by St. James Hotel proprietor and President William Howard Taft lookalike James Wilson Smith in 1901.
An important question remains. How was this photograph taken? The answer is written in the bottom left-hand corner. In 1899, a new form of transportation arrived in Rochester. The Detroit, Rochester, Romeo and Lake Orion Railway (later acquired by the Detroit United Railway) brought interurban streetcars through Rochester almost every hour from 6 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Rochester also became home to the railway’s powerhouse and car barns, near where the Attalah Heart Center is currently located. The powerhouse, which provided electric power for the entire division, featured a towering smoke stack. It was at the top of the smokestack that this photograph was taken.
To discover more local history, visit the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm website at www.rochesterhills.org/museum and check out the online collection catalog at https://rochester hillsmuseum.catalogaccess.com.
— Samantha Lawrence, Museum Archivist at the Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm