Tau Beta Community House / Tau Beta Community House

In 1901, four young women between the ages of fifteen and sixteen founded Tau Beta as a social club for girls. Within a few years, the club members became volunteers for the Visiting Nurse Association, delivering meals to shut-ins in Detroit and establishing a tuberculosis clinic. By 1916, Tau Beta had become a service organization and established a settlement house on Hanley Street to serve the influx of Polish immigrants who had come to work at the Dodge Main auto factory. Hamtramck residents visited the first Tau Beta settlement house for legal aid and medical services. The organization moved to a larger building just down the street in 1920. There it provided a daycare center, a playground, laundry services and Hamtramck’s first public library. Tau Beta hired the Detroit architectural firm Smith, Hinchman and Grylls to design this 1928 building. The much larger space allowed for full-time doctors at medical and dental clinics, a gymnasium, an auditorium and a full-sized kitchen. By the 1950s, an increase in Hamtramck social service providers had reduced the need for Tau Beta’s services. In 1958, the women focused their efforts on charity work outside of the community house and sold the building to the Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Catholic Church for use as a school. Various businesses occupied the house until 2017, when Hamtramck Public Schools purchased the property. The front entrance and modern exterior are not original to the 1928 structure, but the interior remains largely unchanged.