In 1969, through a collaboration of local entities, a Hillsdale centennial celebration was held and a fine booklet was published: Hillsdale Area Centennial: 1869 - 1969.  This softcover compilation is used to this day as a reference.

The former Galloway home at 10 South Broad Street was one of those fine older homes featured in the book.  The property was a Hillsdale landmark at Broad and Bacon Streets for years, before the home’s destruction to clear the way for the building of the Hillsdale State Savings Bank building and facilities.

Lorenzo Russell reportedly built the home in the mid 1840s, then sold it to Isaac Owen in 1856.  From that day until its end, a member of the Owen family lived in the home, the last being Edgar Owen Galloway.  His law office, a separate building, was moved to South Hillsdale Road by Attorney Charles Gibbons.  The building, with some minor additions, remains in that same location today.

According to another local attorney, now deceased, the Galloway house and the house sitting next door - on the same block, to the south - were crumbling due to termite damage.  Sad, but not the first to undergo such damage in our “spring fed” community.

Note: The large bookcases from the Galloway law offices remain in use today, one on the second floor of the Mitchell Research Center and the other in the Historical Society Museum on the northwest corner of the Hillsdale County Fairgrounds.  

Carol A. Lackey