MUSKEGON, Mich. — The number one investigator in Muskegon County. It’s a title Sheriff Michael Poulin holds literally and now figuratively.
“They're big, and they look pretty distinctively different than than what you have in your bathroom today,” said Frank Peterson, WheelFish Group’s vice president of operations. “We always said, ‘Well, if they go up for sale, they're going to have to be ours.’”
Peterson explains on Monday, he got a message from the area’s top cop that said he came across a listing for two antique toilets that looked like they belonged to the Hackley Building in downtown Muskegon, which is currently under renovation by WheelFish Group’s nonprofit organization.
“We had kind of forgotten about them; we had moved on,” said Peterson.
Peterson says they disappeared in September, shortly after someone wandered in and asked about the porcelain thrones with mahogany seats.
“It just wasn’t the time to give them away or sell them to someone,” said Peterson. “Then, two days later, they noticed they were gone. We surmise it’s the same person [but] it very well could be that there’s a keen interest in old toilets in Muskegon.”
At the time, Peterson made a post that urged the thief to return them but no one came forward.
After the initial shock of Poulin’s discovery wore off, Peterson passed the tip onto the Muskegon Police Department (MPD), who then tracked down the toilets to a property on 3rd Street, just two blocks away from the Hackley Building.
Poulin and MPD declined FOX 17’s interview requests for the story.
“The people who who had them, it sounds like they were abandoned in a building from [a] previous tenant, so whoever this was maybe was renting space from them,” said Peterson. “They happily gave them to the police.”
Peterson says it’s unknown how WheelFish Group will use the toilets but as they work to transform the iconic Muskegon landmark into either a government building or boutique hotel, he asks people to respect its history and any other artifacts they uncover.
WheelFish Group expects construction on the building to be finished by 2025.
“We lose so many of these important historic buildings,” said Peterson. “If you take the important pieces from them while we're trying to save it, how do we ever put it back together again?”
Peterson compares the thefts to when people leave the seat up on a toilet.
“To see something like this go away I think would really cause people to question why any of the remaining buildings have been or would be saved,” said Peterson.
