This bakery replaced an old wooden house which dated back to at least the 1870s.
The Rose Bros. were contracted to build a two-story brick building for a brick store and bakery owned by Frank Ruhl in April 1903. The building was built at a cost of $5,000, about $190,000 as of 2026. The building was completed by that November.
The building itself had two stores on the ground floor and residences on the second. The right side storefront held a barbershop operated by George L. Beckerson, which opened in 1904, and the other held Frank Ruhl’s Bakery and restaurant. Ruhl also owned a bakery at what was then 58-60 Gratiot, which is now 218 or 226 Gratiot Ave. following the 1920 renumbering of the city’s street grid.
When the bakery opened, it was advertised as having, “the finest line of bakery goods in the city.” There were several types of breads advertised, including pure rye, rye meal, Graham, Boston brown and pumpernickel, as well as Boston brown beans.
Beckerson had a hair tonic called Beckerson’s Columbian Hair Tonic, manufactured by the Columbian Hair Tonic Co., which he sold for $1 a bottle, about $37.52 as of 2026.
The apartments were home to various residents over the building's short existence, including Elizabeth McCur, Minnie Nixon, Albert J. Parks, Albert Swain, Florence Swain and Joseph Peters.
In June 1913, the tenants in the building were given an eviction notice in order to build the Palace Theatre. Beckerson got an injunction against the demolition, on the grounds that his barbershop’s lease was to run another 16 months, however the injunction was served to only the demolition company and not the Palace Theatre Co.
An advertisement in The Detroit News and Detroit Times from June 12, 1913, advertised the bricks from the building being for sale cheap, 10 days before demolition began.
Beckerson’s valiant stand
On June 22, 1913, 20 demolition workers from the Burgess-Ray Housewrecking Co. showed up, led by M. Hoffman and Clare A. Hoffman from the Palace Theatre Co. to begin wrecking the building to make way for the theater, however, the tenants had other plans.
When Beckerson realized what was going on, he "sent the [wreckers] flying for the exits when he entered the place and began throwing chairs," the Detroit Times wrote the next day.
This resulted in the workers beginning to head upstairs to the home of Joseph Peters, a 63-year-old man who lived with his two daughters. "The (wreckers) were met at the head of the stairway by the enraged old man, who threatened to 'whip' the whole invading army if any of them dared to set foot on his threshold."
The workers withdrew, and after some time, it was agreed that Peters and his family would be moved elsewhere and given money as compensation. The building’s owner, Frank Ruhl, who was also vice president of the Palace Theatre Co., was treated in a similar fashion, as when he arrived on scene, he found all of his baking machinery in the alleyway.
The police watched all of this happen, declaring that they had no right to intervene.
Beckerson, on the other hand, stood his ground, refusing to leave the building even after wreckers began to tear it down. Officials from the theater company began to fight Beckerson’s injunction against the demolition, appearing on June 25 before Judge Philip T. Van Zile, who ruled that no arguments would be heard until Beckerson’s attorney had his four-day notice.
On June 26, W.H. Burgess, head of the wrecking company, announced his plan to start tearing down the barbershop the next day. To this, Beckerson stated that “I will be in the shop on guard Friday, the same as I have on every other day this week. … I am protected by the law, and I guess the sheriff and the police will see that I will receive my rights. If they look for trouble, they are liable to find it.” At this time, the motion to dissolve Beckerson’s injunction was to be argued in court on Monday.
Despite this, he still remained in the building, even after the wreckers knocked a massive hole into the back wall of his shop.
On Saturday, June 28, six days after the wreckers began to raze the building, Beckerson and the theater company came to terms and reached a cash settlement.
“What the terms were, Beckerson refused to state, but he had moved his razors and other paraphernalia Saturday afternoon and announced that he was satisfied.” According to the Detroit Free Press the next day. Beckerson was quoted as saying, “I got my price” and, “They could have settled up a week ago.”
That afternoon, he moved what remained of his barbershop out of the wreckage of the building.
The Palace Theatre’s auditorium would be built in that spot and opened Feb. 16, 1914.