6901 Gratiot Avenue
People’s State Bank Branch, Peoples Wayne County Bank Branch, E. M. Doty, Inc., Harmony Baptist Church, Gospel Chapel Church, New Silver Star Missionary Baptist Church
This People’s State Bank branch broke ground in 1915 and was completed by the following year. The 1915 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map included the structure from plans drawn up by the firm Stratton & Von Schneider, who designed the bank building.
By 1928, the structure had become a Peoples Wayne County Bank Branch, as the People’s State Bank merged with the Wayne County Home Savings Bank that year in the largest merger the state had seen up until that point. Bank mergers and failures were common during the Great Depression.
Peoples Wayne County Bank went belly up during the depression, and the bank would have vacated the structure at this time. I can’t be sure what happened after that; however, E. M. Doty, Inc. utilized space between 1938 and 1942, offering Detroiters auto loan refinancing. The company had multiple locations, including this one. It’s possible that this company was located inside another bank building. For a time, this may have been a First National Bank location.
The 1949 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map lists this structure as a storefront—not a bank. The building appears identical to the drawings done in 1915, though the neighborhood surrounding it was far more filled in than three decades prior.
In 1951, the structure was listed as Harmony Baptist Church. This is the only mention of this church that I’ve found at this location.
By 1963, the structure was home to the Gospel Chapel Church, which was founded in 1940 and incorporated on the state level in 1946. In 1966, Reverend Regan Wright, one of the church’s founders, died, and his services were held at the structure pictured here. The church moved on paper from this address in 1977.
New Silver Star Missionary Baptist Church was founded on the state level in 2014, though that name was on the church before then. The church was dissolved last year, though it may still be active under a different name.
Structures like this are hard to admire because of the shocking width of Gratiot Avenue today. It’s hard to imagine taking a stroll up the street to the bank or church, as it feels like walking next to a highway as soon as you get anywhere close to Gratiot. It doesn’t help that most of Detroit’s major streetscapes lack green spaces, enforcing the idea that Detroit’s modern layout is for cars, not people.
Hopefully, this structure can continue to serve those who live near it for another century.
