OM8 No. 1024-()018 Eap. 10-31-84 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form
Contll'l.lation sheet Item number Page 34
Historic Name: Cass Motor Sales Common Name: Dalgleish Cadillac location: 5800 Cass Avenue Classification: Category: Building Ownership: Private Public Acquisition: N/A Status: Occupied Accessible: Yes, Unrestricted Present Use: Commercial
Owner of Property: Charles Dalgleish Cadillac, Inc. 6160 Cass Avenue Detroit, Michigan 48202
Description: Condition: Excellent Unaltered Original Site
Located on Oass Avenue adjacent to the Ford Expressway, the Cass Motor Sales building is a three-story, Art Deco styled, rectangular structure consisting of four bay sections separated by engaged columns that run the height of the building. Constructed in 1928, the building originally functioned as an integrated automobile showroom, service garage, and business offices for Cass Motor Sales. The front facade consists of three bays of equal size separated by engaged columns, and a fourth entrance bay smaller in scale. The base of the bay sections is made of black marble, and black colored metal panels provide a decorative separation between the first and second stories. The front facade is asymmetrically arranged, with an automobile entrance bay forming the northern most section, and a double-door pedestrian entrance located off to the right of center. Art Deco styli.ng provides decorative features throughout the front facade. Most noticeable is the stepped-arch treatment given to the arches above the four second story window sections, and to the arch above the front entrance. The geometric pattern of the string course between the second and third floors, and on the front entrance entablature, also point to the Art Deco movement that first emerged in the 1920s. Three of the original four metal-bracketed exterior light fixtures continue to adorn the front facade. The Cass Motor Sales building was once part of a street-setting filled with commercial and automobile-related structures. Many of those structures adjacent to Cass Motor Sales were removed as part of the construction of the OMB No. 1024-0018 NPS FOI'III 1NCICN Exp.10-31-84 CW2) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form
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Ford Elcpressway during the 1950s. Their demolition left the long northern side of the building open to full view. Today, Dalgleish Cadillac advertises its business on the spacious northern facade Which overlooks the expressway.
Significance: Period: 1900- Areas of Significance: Architecture, Commerce, Industry, Transportation Construction Date: 1928 Builder/Architect: Unknown
The Cass Motor Sales building is significant as a fine example of 1920s Art Deco styling as applied to commercial structures, in this case an auto mobile dealership that originally sold vehicles for the Marmon Motor Company of Indianapolis, Indiana. The relationship between Cass Motor Sales and Mar mon Motor Company is illustrative of a phase in the history of the aqtomobile industry when, before the Great Depression of the 1930s, numerous small and medium size automobile manufacturing companies occupied a tiny, but signifi cant, sector of the marketplace. Cass Motor Sales also reflects the transi tion in land use within the University-Cultural Center away from a more strictly residential area to a commercial and mixed-use area.
During the 1920s, the Art Deco movement arose with the avowed aim of uniting art and industry. Stylists frequently adopted the kinds of geometric motifs found on the facade of Cass Motor Sales to adorn commercial structures and occasionally apartment buildings. While Art Deco commonly accented the vertical character of structures much taller than Cass Motor Sales, the elon gated Mayan or stepped arch located above the second story window sections tends, instead, to enhance the horizontal appearance of the building. Richard A. Cott paid approximately $146,000 to have the Cass Motor Sales building constructed in 1928. Richard Cott (1892-1965) immigrated to the United States from England circa 1905. In 1925, he founded Cass Motor Sales and from 1928 to 1933 sold automobiles for the Marmon Motor Company. After 1933, Cass Motor Sales operated as a Chrysler dealership. Cott was a member of the Detroit Automobile Dealers Association, once serving as President of its Board of Directors. Four years after Richard Cott died in 1965, the family-owned business came to an end. Charles Dalgleish Cadillac, Inc., a dealership located on Cass Ave., became the subsequent owner of the nominated property. Colonel Howard Marmon had established Marmon Motor Company in 1904 in Indianapolis, Indiana. The company made automotive racing history in 1911 when the Marmon Wasp won the first Indianapolis 500 with an average speed of 74 miles per hour. The company also pioneered in the development of the V-8 engine and in the use of aluminum in engine components. Marmon Motors was OMB No. 1024-oot& NPSF-1~ ()G) Eap.t0-31-84 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form
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typical of many automobile manufacturing firms that dotted the industry in its early days and into the 1920s, despite the persistent tendency toward dominance of the industry and marketplace by a small number of heavily capitalized cor porations. Marmon went out of business in 1933. Its passing during the Great Depression, as did many small and medium-size companies, signaled the emergence of an automobile industry ·more concentrated among a few large corporations. Richard Cott's decision to operate his automobile dealership on Cass Avenue was a logical choice. During the 1920s, much of Cass Avenue was given over to commercial activity, a lot of it in the form of auto dealerships, service sta tions, and auto parts suppliers. In 1928-29, this kind of connnercia1 activity along Cass stretched from Alexandrine to about W. Forest, and then it picked up again around W. Palmer and continued in a northerly fashion among the Cadillac and Buick automobile factories located just below the site of the General Motors Building (1922, by Albert Kahn) at Grand Boulevard between Cass and Second Boulevard. In its own way, therefore, the Cass Motor Sales building reflects the profound transformation that occurred in the University-Cultural Center away from a more purely upper-class residential and undeveloped area to a mixed-use area containing commercial and industrial activities.
Bibliography:
"cott, Richard A." Reading Room File, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library (hereafter, BHC).
Lewis, Albert L. and Walter Musciano. Automobiles of the World. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977.
Geographical Data: Acreage: Less than one acre Quadrangle Name: Detroit, Mich.--Ontario Quadrangle Scale: 1:24000 UTM Reference: 17 .329520 4691900 Verbal Boundary Description & Justification: W 180' of Lot 18 of Walker's Subdivision of Park Lot 50, Governor & Judges Plan. This is all the property on which the building stands. ~
NPS Form 10-IDO-e OMB No. 102 4- 0018 ~) expires 10 -31-87 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form
Continuation sheet Item number Page
Multiple Resource Area dnr-11 Thematic Group
~niversity-Cu1tura1 Center Phase I MRA Name~~~~~~------~~- State ~ 1 :iJo?>~""""-•' •., COVER ?::!i(f_k Nomination/Type of Review Date]S1gnature I ti~e R~v1.e• _L 0-J-.. · ~- j J /. I. 1. 1. C-a s s Motor S a 1 e s SU1Jert&n lJ'{ Keeper f~ JfbiJ/jAA;J , lf!1 f' lY' Attest Su 1 '\>e'B&v1e;o , , v 2. Jacob, Max, House • -· ' I I , . ' ~ \ ----~~------~~ :lubat6L.nttvt! •'EiV1
3. Joy, James, House ')
Ubs t·li 4. Linsell, Frederick, House I
, ~vs. Rands, William C., House .. Keeper J.JJ.().N r\ ,, {.U{i 1./f).Cf I Attest )j;', ... 6. Smith, Samuel L., House ""' ~ eeper /!iwJ ]J..Mu ~/J1/it, Attest 7. Sprague, Thomas S., House ~per ~£~/;-b Attest W.per (~ rt,/LT/!£ ! 1 Attest ,-. I Keeper ~ yjq /r' ! Attest Keeper Re~t.A,Vt'. ?tJA 4/~ 5 Attest WASO Form • 177 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR ("R" June 1984) NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES EVALUATION/RETURN SHEET
Cass Motor Sales (University-Cultural Center Phase I MRA) Wayne County Working No.~~ I 9 1986 MICHIGAN Fed. Reg. Date: ~~~'=-''7c..._-r-.....-r---- Date Due: -:_rf..'* Action: _=ccEPT £-&--P-t-06 0 resubmission _RETURN 0 nomination by person or local government __ REJECT ______0 owner objection Federal Agency: ______0 appeal Substantive Review: sample 0 request Oappeal 0 N R decision Reviewer's comments:
Reoom./Cdt~ A/C k.bLu~ ~~~ ~f~ Reviewer ro CL{.)i1 fXJJf;v~r ArtfJet 1. Name 2. location 3. Classification Category Ownership Status Present Use Public Acquisition Accessible 4. Owner of Property 5. location of legal Description 6. Representation in Existing Surveys Has this property been determined eligible? Dyes Ono 7. Description Condition Check one Check one 0 excellent 0 deteriorated 0 unaltered 0 original site Ogood 0 ruins 0 altered 0 moved date------Dtalr 0 unexposed Describe the present and original (if known) physical appearance 0 summary paragraph 0 completeness 0 clarity 0 alterations/integrity 0 dates 0 boundary selection 8. Significance Period Areas of Significance-Check and justify below Specific dates Builder I Architect Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) 0 summary paragraph 0 completeness 0 clarity 0 applicable criteria 0 justification of areas checked 0 relating significance to the resource 0 context 0 relationship of integrity to significance 0 justification of exception 0 other 9. Major Bibliographical References 10. Geographical Data Acreage of nominated property ------Quadrangle name ______UTM References Verbal boundary description and justification 11. Form Prepared By 12. State Historic Preservation Officer Certification The evaluated significance of this property within the state is: national state local State Historic Preservation Officer signature title date 13. Other 0Maps 0 Photographs 0 Other Questions concerning this nomination may be directed to------ Signed _. ______Date------Phone:------ GPO 9 1 8 ·450 Comments for any item may be continued on an attached sheet Please refer to the map in the Multiple Property Cover Sheet for this property Multiple Property Cover Sheet Reference Number: -=====640====00===337=------