This building began as a Second Empire house built by George Mitchell in 1874. A lumberman and Cadillac’s first mayor, Mitchell built the house with ornately carved woodwork and a mansard roof. His business partner, Wellington W. Cummer, occupied it from 1878 to 1922, when it was purchased by Mitchell’s grand nephew, Charles T. Mitchell. In 1926 Charles, a local industrialist, renovated the house to conform with current architectural trends. Totally redone in the Prairie style and clad with red brick, it lost its ornamentation and gained a low pitched hipped roof. The extensive renovation was testimony to Charles Mitchell’s wealth; his firms employed from one fourth to one third of Cadillac’s work force.