916 College Avenue
The house “faced both the fashionable boulevard and the industrial waterway that supported [the owner’s] wealth” (Scarlett).
This Victorian style house was built before 1874 by James Pryor, a successful mining captain and businessman who owned a lumber mill. The lumberyard was built around 1900 and named James Pryor & Son. He acquired this property as a part of Shelden-Columbian Mining Company’s Office Row. The location was optimal because of its proximity to the Portage waterfront where his business was located. Over the years, the ownership of the house changed, including to the registrar for the Michigan College of Mining and Technology in the mid 1900s, Leo Duggin. The house was purchased by the Beta Xi chapter of the Alpha Sigma Tau sorority in 1985, who continue to hold ownership of this house today.
The house was altered many times with the alterations in the 1890s shaping the current Victorian style structure of the house. The exterior is defined by two turrets, yellow painted siding, green trim, and a shingled roof. The yellow and green details appear to be a nod to the sorority’s colors, emerald green and victory gold. The exterior of the house is further detailed with a total of five porches, four on the front face of the house and one in the back.
Sources: Alfson, E. (2003, April 28) 916 College Ave. Report prepared for SS 3515 History of American Architecture at Michigan Technological University; Alpha Sigma Tau National Website; Historic Houghton Walking Tour (c. 2000); Sarah Fayen Scarlett, Company Suburbs: Architecture, Power, and the Transformation of Michigan’s Mining Frontier (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2021).; Image: Vernacular Architecture Forum. (2024). 916 College Ave. North of the Northwoods: From Mines to Motels on Michigan’s Lake Superior (p. 58). photograph.