Less than a 1/2 mile to the east of the Raisinville Grange Hall, site of many Heiden Reunions is the tiny community known as Grape. It was at one time a lumber mill community with felled trees being floated down the River Raisin and into an artificial little stream which led to the mill. Later it was noted primarily for a single general purpose store.

In some wedding announcements, there was mention of receptions held at the Woodman Hall in Grape. There was (or may still be) a community building just east of the store pictured above which could have been this hall.

According to the booklet, "Maybee, Michigan History of the Village including Grape, Michigan Area" which was printed in 1973, the Township of Raisinville bought a lot in Grape on which to build a township hall. It states, "A contract was let to Peter Netcher in 1891, to  build a hall for $544.00. It is believed William Heiden (left) worked on the building of this hall too." William Carl Heiden would have been about 17 years old at this time.

 

Grape store was only about a 10 minute journey on a Farmall H tractor for those of us living at 8420 Dixon Road. My dad, Art Heiden would sometimes have me drive over and pick him up a pack of Winston cigarettes for 35 cents and we could get a 10 oz. bottle of Pepsi for 10 cents.

That's me and my brother, Ron Heiden in a much later picture sitting on the old Farmall H which was a product of the no longer existing International Harvester Company. There used to be a gas pump in front of the store where we could fill up the tractor or car if needed.

After serving in World War II, Lavern Berns and his wife Sallie lived in one of the buildings (shown above or in the article below) in Grape. This is where their oldest child, Galen, was born in 1948. Shortly thereafter, they moved to 8031 Dixon Road.

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GRAPE - Not too much was happening in Grape the day this photograph was taken in 1909. But the community wasn't always this quiet. During the Civil War and in the following years there was at Grape a sawmill which supplied planks for the road which passed through Grape and forked a miles west of the town. One section followed the Saline River to Milan and the other went along the River Raisin into Tecumseh. The planks were laid side by side and in the words of one older resident, "formed a fine road until the bottom went out in the spring and the planks got lost in the mud."

Few strangers traveling smooth N. Custer Rd. through the quiet community of Grape seven miles west of Monroe would guess that silence of the little town once was rent through the night by the scream of logs meeting the planing saws. Sometimes as many as 30 farmers waited for the gristmill to grind their wheat into flour. Grape's lime was known as the best and its timber the finest. This photograph was submitted by Mrs. Alfred Viard of 719 Custer St. in Monroe. Readers are invited to submit their old photographs for possible publication. All photos will be returned.
The store and the buildings in the pictures at the top of the page are on the right side of this image.

The river was named "Riviere aux Raisin" by the French-Canadian people that first settled in Monroe County. They called it the River Raisin because of the wild grapes growing along its banks. This led to the naming of Raisinville Township and the community of Grape. Also many of the farms along the river are long and narrow so that each farm has access to the banks of the river in the French tradition.