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Early Families

Lloyd Tower Grocery Store 1918. Southeast corner of Saginaw and Maple. Lloyd and Hazel Tower lived above the store, firstborn child, Lester was born there in 1915. When fire destroyed the east side of Saginaw Street this building was spared. The Towers’ moved to Durand in 1924 and operated a grocery but returned to Byron in 1930, operating a grocery in the Fritz building until the depression forced him to close in 1933. Lloyd then went into the wholesale and awning business until his death in 1948. In 1940, Lester Tower operated a radio repair business from his home on Church Street and in 1948 opened a television sales and repair in the same store his father had been in at the corner of Saginaw and Maple. Clayton Harp owned the building and had a machine shop in the back. Two years later, Tower moved across the street to the present location buying the stock from Gordon Stowell Appliance and the business was known as Tower Electric and later, Tower Hardware. After the fire on Easter Sunday, 1955, the store was rebuilt and remodeled and the building to the south was purchased. In 1980, the business was purchased by Marvin and Shirley Mack, the Towers’ daughter and husband. It is now the oldest family business in Byron.