Today in history: Cadillac shopping center site ‘up in the air’ | News

Sept. 17, 1921

There were 3,321 Cadillac citizens who completed the treatment of the three inoculations for typhoid fever at the municipal clinic in the city hall, which closed Saturday evening after a month’s operation. While 3,660 people took the first shot, there were 291 who failed to take their second one. Of the 3,369 who got their second treatment only 48 failed to take the third inoculation. This makes a total of 339 who started the treatments but did not finish them. Saturday, the last day, there were three seconds and 284 thirds given. Thus there were 45 who previously had taken the second shot that did not get a third and it is believed most of these were individuals who did not have time to get their third one before the public clinic closed. The third shots can be obtained from family physicians, it is said. The 291 who took a first shot but did not return are believed to have had reactions which would tend to show their natural resistance to typhoid is quite high. The number was less than 8% of the total. The total of the first, second and third shots shows that there were 10,350 inoculations performed at the clinic, which were through volunteer service of Cadillac physicians.

Sept. 17, 1971

Arrangements were being made today for three city officials to go to Southfield sometime next week to consult with officials of a firm which has proposed building a shopping center north of Cadillac. The trio, Mayor Ronald Wilson, City Manager Donald Mason and City Attorney Edward TenHouten, will meet with officials of Woodward Development Corp. relative to that firm’s progress toward completion of plans for the proposed project. Mason talked by telephone with Woodward President Roy McLaughlin today and with other officials Tuesday relative to the firm’s progress and was told acquisition of the proposed sit was “still up in the air” but McLaughlin confirmed plans to build a shopping center “in the Cadillac area.” Stanley Fawcett, owner of part of the property in Haring Township considered for purchase as a shopping center site, has leased a portion of his property to Ron Blackman of Detroit who plans to operate a scrap iron business there. Blackman was granted a license to operate Monday night by the Haring Township Board, it was reported to the Evening News. In Mason’s conversation with McLaughlin, he asked for definite information on the firm’s plans prior to Oct. 7 when the Boundary Commission has scheduled a public hearing on the city’s plan to annex that part of Haring Township in which the shopping center would be located. McLaughlin assured Mason some definite decision would be made by a week from today. McLaughlin said it is still the firm’s plan to build a shopping center in the Cadillac area although he admitted to the firm’s failure to complete the land acquisitions as announced. The firm’s plan originally came to the attention of the Cadillac City Commission in the form of a request for water and sewer service to the shopping center site. City officials were firm in their opinion that serving this area outside the city with water and sewer would jeopardize the future planning for the services within the city. They took action to annex the proposed site and the Northern District Fairgrounds. Fair Board members had previously indicated they would not oppose annexation but later changed their stand to go along with strong opposition voiced by Haring Township residents and officials.

Sept. 17, 1996

More than a decade in the making, Cadillac’s groundwater cleanup facility has quietly started to clean up underground solution in the old industrial park area. Cadillac City officials began their meeting Monday night with a close-up look at the plant, that started operation earlier this month. Early in the 1980s, officials discovered industrial grease-cleaning and chrome-plating chemicals that leaked or were dumped in earlier decades. The chemicals pollute two layers of groundwater in the area. The city’s well fields lie in a third layer about 300-350 feet below the surface, separated by a 40-foot-thick clay layer that city officials say the pollution cannot penetrate. The pollution is spreading slowly northwest, causing officials to close private wells in Haring Township’s North Park development years ago. The cleanup plant began pulling that polluted water out of the ground Sept. 3 through some of the 18 wells. Not all wells are online yet, because the plant is already running at the limit of its environmental permit, said Peter Daukss of Fishbeck, Thompson, Carr and Huber that designed it. Eventually the plant will draw 1,800 to 2,000 gallons of water per minute out of the ground, then mix it with air in air stripping towers, allowing volatile organic compounds (the chemical degreasers) to disperse into the atmosphere. One well will draw out water polluted with chrome-plating chemicals and send it to a carbon absorption system before it mixes with the other water in the air stripping towers. The treated water will be released into the Clam River.