Floyd R. Mechem House

Professor Floyd R. Mechem was born in New York in May of 1858 but moved to Ann Arbor at a young age and attended high school there between 1874 and 1875. Mecham could not afford to attend law school, but in his evenings, he would spend his time reading legal books and was admitted to take the bar exam in 1879. Mechem began practicing law in Battle Creek, Michigan, and served four times as a city attorney before moving to Detroit in 1887. In Detroit he established the law firm of Mechem & Beaumont. 

Mechem was appointed as Tappan Professor of Law in the Department of Law at the University of Michigan in 1892. During his tenure with the University of Michigan, Mechem produced many widely used law textbooks and other publications including subjects such as the law of public offices and officers and the law of succession. Professor Mechem left the University of Michigan in 1903 to serve as a professor of law at the newly established University of Chicago Law School. Professor Mechem passed away in 1928. 

The Mechem House continued to serve a variety of purposes for the University of Michigan community in later years. From 1917 to 1923, Professor Joseph A. Bursley, along with his wife Marguerite and their three daughters, lived in the house. Professor Bursley was appointed to the university’s mechanical engineering facility in 1904, earning a position as a full-time professor in 1917, and he served as the university’s first dean of students in 1921. The Mechem House served during the 1930s as a Women’s League residence which provided housing for the growing number of women enrolled in the university. Since then it has and continues to serve as housing for a large number of University of Michigan students. 

Floyd R. Mechem House, National Register of Historic Places. Accessed November 23rd 2020. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/25340714.

Floyd R. Mechem House, Wikipedia. Accessed January 21st 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_R._Mechem_House.