Photograph of the brick Lansing House under construction, Lansing, Michigan in 1866. Built by Col. Lafayette C. Baker with a portion of the money he received for the capture of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln. Baker was head of the secret service in Washington, D.C. The hotel was badly damaged by fire in 1876. Henry J. Downey, in 1889, purchased the hotel and reopened it as the Downey House. In 1937 the hotel was razed by the Downey estate who then leased the land to the J. W. Knapp Co. who erected a modern department store on the site.
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