K  Part of the backbone of any community is private businesses. Three of those that influenced Lansing history are Kositchek's, J. W. Knapps, and the old Kerns Hotel.

Henry Kositchek settled in Eaton Rapids immigrating there from Bohemia. In Eaton Rapids he began his dry goods store. Within a few years, he was joined by his brothers, Max, Jacob, and Adolf. In 1989, Henry moved the business to it's present location on Washington Avenue.

Originally, J. W. Knapps was a partner in the Jewett and Knapps dry good store in downtown Lansing. In 1903, he founded the J. W. Knapp Company that grew to be Lansing's largest department store. The store, constructed in 1937 on the site of the old Downey Hotel, "…the five story Art Deco building created considerable attention in both the statewide and national press for its architectural innovation. (pg. 61)

"On December 11, 1934, as Lansing was struggling to emerge from more than four years of economic troubles (the Great Depression), a non-economic disaster hit the city's downtown area - fire destroyed the Hotel Kerns.

"Unfortunately the hotel was a blazing inferno when fire trucks arrived," a State Journal reporter wrote. "Caught like rats in a trap, guests of the hotel stumbled over each other in the halls and many more were unable to get out their rooms because of the flames."

The fire that destroyed the 17-year-old structure left more than 30 people dead and leveled at least a temporary blow to Lansing's attempt to attract an increasing number of conventioneers and tourists." (pg. 61)