Lewis College of Business

This Colonial Revival structure was built in 1910 for James F. Murphy, treasurer of the Murphy Chair Company and a future director of the Murphy-Potter Company. In 1941 it became the office of the Lewis College of Business. Violet T. Lewis had established the college in Indianapolis in 1929 to train black women for business careers. Ten years later the Detroit Chamber of Commerce invited her to open a school here. The college was located at this site from 1941 to 1976, when its expansion required more spacious quarters. In its first fifty years, it educated over twenty thousand students. The United States Department of Education designated the Lewis College of Business a “Historically Black College” in 1987. It was the first college in the state to receive this designation.