My uncle bought it from the widow and kept the name, because it was established in Saginaw, and had been here since 1891. He didn't want to all of a sudden, open a new jewelry store.
This location is where it all originated, but in 1952 or 53, there was a jeweler downtown on Franklin St. and he passed away. His wife wasn't going to do anything with it so my grandpa and uncle bought that store.
For a while, there were two Bauer’s Jewelry stores in Saginaw. This one here, and then the one on Franklin Street. The one on Franklin Street ended up doing much better than this one ever did. So, they closed this one and everybody went to Franklin Street.
Then, in 1972, they were building the Civic Center and the parking garage, tearing down our side of the building that we were in.
By this time, Bauer’s Jewelry was my Dad’s, so he had to find a new place. He was looking into the mall, the little strip mall where Forbidden City, and Green Acres.
He didn’t travel down Court St. to work when he was going to Franklin, he’d usually go through Carrollton, and over the 6th St. bridge. But, they had the bridge closed for work. So, he just happens to be going down Court St. and this place was open for rent. He called, looked into it and we moved in.
I've been working here for 44 years now. I was 14 and in 8th grade when I started.
I would walk from North School to here, three days a week. I slowly worked my way up from sweeping floors.
When I was 14, I didn't know how to do anything but sweep the floor.
The first thing I started doing was engraving. Then I started fixing clocks. I went from fixing clocks to fixing watches. When I got that down, I started to learn how to set stones, then how to grade diamonds, how to tell fake from real and whatnot and now, that's experience just from doing it for 40 years.
Now, I'm selling diamonds, doing appraisals, some watch repair, jewelry repair, really anything that needs to be done. I'm the one that does it.
When you come to Bauer’s, I'm going to explain why this ring costs this much, why these diamonds look the way they do. All of our stuff is also made in the United States and through a lot of Michigan vendors.
I can show you the difference between a nice color and a lower color. I can show you the difference between a nice clear stone and a stone that is so included, it affects the brilliance of it. If you don't have those two to compare next to each other. You don't know what you're getting.
We know a lot of our customers by name. We're seeing third and fourth generation families coming in, telling us, “My mom and dad told me to come in here, or my grandpa told me to stop in”. We have great customers. Very nice people, and a lot of locals.
Being down here in Old Town, we're close to all these people. You know, you do stuff for each other. We all look out for each other, and have for years."
- Steve & Mary Schultz, Bauer's Jewelry
