I burst out laughing when I saw this shot - it looks **exactly** like what I've seen in a gay sauna. Guys at the doors, waiting for interested dudes to play with.

According to a 1892 business directory: 22 to 30 North Huron (just north of Michigan Avenue and west of the Huron River), in beautiful downtown Ypsi.

I grew up in Ypsi and remember reading about the "healing waters." Has anyone found out where this was located?

Now I understand how Ypsilanti's Water Tower came to be!

Because they haven't been invented yet?

This reminds me of San Francisco in the late 70s.

"Ypsilanti has already come to be the center of attraction for the halt, the lame and the blind, the palsied and paralylics."

http://ypsigleanings.aadl.org/ypsigleanings/13079

"Come bathe with us ... forever!"

"If you are sad, with sickness worn,
And have the headache every morn,
Just come and drink a healing horn,
Of Ypsilanti water.”

—- from a Ballad for Ypsilanti Mineral Spring Water

The shoes in these old photos always look like torture devices. Looking at the gnarled bare feet of these poor gentlemen, I think we can confirm the torture-footwear theory.

Reminds me of the Riis Park Bathhouse.

As the Ypsilanti Quarter Club sang when the spa opened in 1884:

It's true, it has a woeful smell
But if your stomach don't rebel
It's just the thing to make you well
And praise up Ypsilanti!

We're here in this all male bath house for the minerals. Really!

Does this picture remind anyone else of the two creepy girls in the hallway from "The Shining"?

I can see a set for something by Laurel and Hardy or maybe an early Mack Sennett extravaganza with Chaplin.