A History Lover's Guide to Detroit

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INTRODUCTION

Detroit is popping up on all kinds of popular travel lists as the place to visit. After decades of negative press, the recognition is appreciated. The influx of visitors, curious to see what the buzz is all about, is a welcome boon for local attractions and businesses, including mine. Requests for private and public tours have soared in the past two years.

There is something rather comical and even disconcerting, however, about these lists. They tend to portray Detroit as some new discovery and imply that there was nothing in Detroit worth seeing or discovering until the city emerged from bankruptcy, a pricey watchmaker (no offense, Shinola, we love you) and other oft-touted new businesses opened up shop and investors became interested in the city. This narrative couldn’t be further from the truth.

While many think the trendy art, food and cocktail scene, new sports stadiums and redevelopment projects are the big draws, they’re just part of the story—the icing on the cake. Yes, hip coffee shops, restaurants, bars, distilleries, microbreweries, boutiques, urban gardens, galleries and funky street murals do elevate the travel experience. They’re what draw visitors and make for an exciting stay. These leisure and lifestyle amenities can, however, be easily replicated anywhere. What makes Detroit truly an exciting destination—unlike anywhere else—is its unique soul, story, history.

The flags of three different countries—France, England and the United States of America—have flown over Detroit, one of the Midwest’s oldest cities. Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac claimed this region for New France seventeen years before the French lay claim to historic New Orleans. Our nation’s Founding Fathers declared independence from Britain seventy-five years after the creation of Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit.

City on the rise waterfront view features a bustling wharf with steamships from Tashmoo Park and Bob-Lo Island, favorite local amusement parks, and signage for homegrown staple Vernors Ginger Ale. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Sainte Anne de Detroit, established two days after the city’s French founding, is the second-oldest continuously operating Catholic parish in the United States. Detroit served as a major stop on the Underground Railroad. Its residents played a pivotal role in securing Union victory during the Civil War, while local politicians authored major legislation that still defines our nation.

Not only is Detroit known for putting the world on wheels, but it’s also known as the Arsenal of Democracy. During his December 29, 1940 fireside chat that was broadcast live over the radio, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned listeners of the dangers Americans would encounter if Britain fell and the Axis powers prevailed. We must be the great arsenal of democracy, he implored after urging manufacturing facilities to begin producing defense materials without delay. The Motor City answered the call by suspending automobile production at its factories to make jeeps, tanks, bombers and other military equipment instead. By producing 30 percent of the nation’s munitions, Detroit shaped the outcome of World War II.

Civil rights leaders and labor activists organized massive marches and protests here. Their activism brought about significant social changes in the country. Sports legends such as Joe Louis, who was raised in Detroit, and labor leaders such as Walter Reuther not only left marks in their respective fields but also impacted American history.

Detroit’s storied sports teams, dating back to the early days of their prospective professional leagues, have long drawn visitors, as have the city’s distinguished cultural institutions. The Detroit Institute of Arts ranks among the finest art museums in the nation, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is a world-class orchestra. Prior to the recent opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., Detroit’s Charles H. Wright Museum held the distinction of being the largest repository of African American artifacts in the world.

It’s no big secret Detroit is synonymous with music. Home of the world’s oldest jazz club, it’s here where many legendary jazz and blues artists met fame. The Motown sound, the soundtrack to so many lives, still endures. Rock greats, the Queen of Soul and the first family of gospel all hail from Detroit, where the music legacy continues today in the contemporary forms of the genres mentioned, as well as hip-hop and techno.

Tourism is nothing new to Detroit. The Illustrated Guide and Souvenir of Detroit published in 1878 by Silas Farmer & Co. lured visitors with this enticing description: This Queen City of the Lakes, the oldest in the West, is rich in legendary lore and rare historic story.

The nation’s first convention and visitors bureau opened right here in 1895, and the spectacular Detroit International Exposition & Fair of 1889 put the growing, pre-automotive city in the glare of the international spotlight, drawing attention to the metropolis’ potential, progress, and prosperity, according to author Richard Bak. The local tourism industry became so competitive by 1915 that tour operators fought over who would take sightseers to popular destinations of the time, such as the log cabin at Palmer Park, Belle Isle and Waterworks Park. Smaller companies accused Dietsche Sightseeing Company of using unfair practices to gain advantage, such as anchoring a sightseeing car to Woodward avenue and using it as a decoy to get passengers.

Tour bus belonging to Dietsche Sight Seeing Company, one of many tour operators providing tours of Detroit in the early 1900s, stops in front of Belle Isle casino. Author’s collection.

Even world-famous Gray Line bus tours could be found in Detroit. The company, which started in Washington, D.C., in 1910, expanded into major cities including Detroit in 1926. A few years later, the city’s transportation department became a Gray Line franchisee and continued operating the service. Aside from a brief closure during World War II, visitors could see the city aboard Gray Line buses until service was discontinued without fanfare or much public notice in 2003. A 1965 advertisement billed the tours as the most complete and appealing ever assembled. Destinations on the two- to five-hour tours included Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum, the waterfront, Civic Center, Belle Isle, Windsor, New Center area, Wayne State University campus and cultural center.

For most of my lifetime, this great city has been viewed with derision and fear. The dramatic loss of population, industry and jobs during the latter half of the twentieth century resulted in an unfathomable decline of a once great American city. This prolonged downfall caused many serious issues, including financial instability, which eventually led to municipal bankruptcy and an unprecedented amount of urban decay as thousands of buildings around the city sat vacant.

Sadly, over the years, it seemed as if many people took pleasure in Detroit’s demise and used it to validate political ideology and racial views. The media didn’t help matters by pushing images of Detroit’s decline and decay in practically every article or feature. In the early twenty-first century, people came to Detroit specifically to gawk at the ruins and learn nothing else about the city. Like many others, I became weary of this jaded depiction and began giving tours to combat these one-sided portrayals. Now as the tide shifts toward positive coverage, people are clamoring to discover Detroit and are surprised to find out the city is much more than what they previously read or heard. I’m fortunate to be in the position where I meet people from all over the country and world and tell them Detroit’s great story—the good, bad, pretty, ugly, strife, scandals, successes, etc. I’ve discovered that even after telling it a thousand times, Detroit’s story never gets old.

I hope as you navigate your way around town, you find this guide easy to use. It should help you make sense of the historic buildings, beloved landmarks and noteworthy attractions you’ll encounter. While A History Lover’s Guide to Detroit is a labor of love, trying to fit this fantastic city’s history into thirty-five thousand words or fewer was stressful and impossible. I purposely didn’t delve deeply into Detroit’s decline and racial divide. If you’d like to learn more, many other books do a great job of tackling these complicated subjects. If I left out significant people, places, industries or events, I apologize. Book a tour with me, and I’ll tell you the whole story.

Most importantly, I urge you to take the time to thoroughly explore the city’s past and enjoy all the fun new developments unfolding today. While people love to talk about reimagining or reinventing Detroit, I hope you take the time to rediscover it.

CHAPTER 1

LOOKING BACK

Detroit is known worldwide as the Motor City and has long held the distinction of being the automobile capital of the world. While the automobile wasn’t invented here, Detroit was the place to be to make your mark in the industry. During the first half of the twentieth century, over one hundred automobile manufacturers and suppliers were located here. Henry Ford’s launch of the Model T, implementation of the moving assembly line to produce affordable cars and five-dollar-a-day wage revolutionized the industry. Today, the metropolitan Detroit area is home to what’s known as the Big Three: Ford, GM and Chrysler (technically FCA for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles).

Detroit’s thriving auto industry fueled the creation of many other supporting industries, and the plethora of job opportunities brought people here from all over the world. Its rise propelled the importance and need for labor unions such as the United Auto Workers to protect workers’ rights and provide living wages. It gave us the first mile of concrete highway and the first traffic light.

As important as the auto industry is to Detroit’s legacy, that’s only part of our story.

July 24, 1701, is commonly claimed as the birthdate of our city, but that’s really just the beginning of our European history. Although they left little evidence of their lives, it’s believed Paleo Indians, a nomadic people who were primarily hunters-gatherers, inhabited this region thousands of years before French colonization. Seventeenth-century French explorers and eighteenth-century settlers would have encountered Native American tribes such as the Odawa or Ottawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwa, Huron or Wyandotte, Menominee, Fox, Miami and Sauk.

Native Americans found this area desirable because the rivers, streams and dense forests provided fertile hunting and fishing grounds. The interconnected waterways made it easy for early inhabitants to travel throughout the area. Many of our major roads, such as Jefferson, Woodward and Michigan Avenues, follow the routes of early Native American footpaths.

The abundant wildlife—primarily beaver, as their pelts were in demand—drew French explorers and trappers to claim this area for France. When Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and his entourage arrived in the area on July 24, 1701, they established Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit, a settlement that served as both a fort and trading post. A lucrative fur trade was established between French fur traders and local Native American tribes. It’s from this early fort that our city derives its name. Detroit is the French word for the strait.

To attract families to the settlement, the French government offered free land to colonists. By the early 1760s, the population had grown to nearly one thousand, making Detroit the largest European settlement between Montreal and New Orleans. Life was difficult in those early days, but many hardy French settlers saw opportunity and chose to join the fur traders. They established ribbon farms, which were long, narrow strips of land originating at the river and stretching miles inland. Many Detroit streets follow the boundaries of those early farms and are named for the original property owners.

French settlers brought cuttings of their beloved pear trees to the new settlement, and these trees flourished. Early written accounts from visitors frequently mention these trees, which lined both sides of the Detroit River. As recently as the 1930s, a dozen trees, dubbed the Twelve Apostles, stood near the river in an area that later became Waterworks Park.

Great Britain, victor of the French and Indian War that pitted British colonists against those in New France, gained control of Detroit in 1763. Under British rule, Detroit served mainly as a fort. Although Great Britain ceded the territory that included Detroit to the newly established United States as part of the Treaty of Paris of 1783 that officially ended the Revolutionary War, the British didn’t relinquish control until after the Jay Treaty was signed in 1795.

After the 1794 defeat of the British-supported Native American Alliance during the Battle of Fallen Timbers by American troops led by General Anthony Wayne, Native American tribes relinquished claims to Fort Detroit and the surrounding area the following year with the signing of the Treaty of Greenville.

An artist’s rendering of Detroit in 1819 depicts Fort Shelby and neighboring homes located within a stockade. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Even under American control, Detroit was not