The C. F Smith Co building was built in 1923-1924. C.F Smith was a grocery chain that operated in the Detroit area from 1910 till the early 1950’s. Most of the site served as a storage facility and the office section was the only part of the area that had external evidence of major fire damage. Carved reliefs of winged horses above the front office entrance caught my attention.

A vintage ghost sign on the west side hinted that the site may have been used for something related with the auto industry in the past. Next to the C. F Smith building was a large wharehouse building with a bridge spanning between 2 blocks over the street so cars and trucks could pass underneath. A brick and stone bridge (circa 1913) had railway tracks running across and a train overhead made a thunderous racket as it went on it’s way north.

After doing some research, references from Ernest Baker and John B. Kirkwood verified that C. F Smith was indeed a grocery company in Detroit. As Ernest Baker stated while discussing their marketing techniques “(* 1) In the early 1950s there were more than 300 C. F Smith food markets in Southwestern Michigan”. John B. Kirkwood also mentioned the C. F Smith stores in his article discussing antitrust law “(*2) This group also includes C. F Smith Co, a grocery chain headquartered in Detroit.”

References

(* 1)
Ernest W. Baker
A 50 Year Adventure in the Advertising Business
Wayne State University Press, February 2000, p 10-12

(*2)
John B. Kirkwood
Antitrust Law And Economics
Elsevier Science & Tech, July 1, 2004, p.226

A46-4 archive