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The French & Indian War - Educational Social Studies History Video for Elementary Students & Kids

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Michigan consists of two peninsulas surrounded primarily by four of the Great Lakes and a variety of nearby islands. The Upper Peninsula is bounded on the southwest by Wisconsin, and the Lower Peninsula is bounded on the south by Indiana and Ohio. Both land masses are also separated from the Canadian province of Ontario by waterways of the Great Lakes, and from each other by the Straits of Mackinac. Because its land is largely surrounded by the Great Lakes, which flow into the Saint Lawrence River, Michigan is the only U.S. state whose streams and rivers are almost entirely within the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence watershed.

Michigan's territorial waters include roughly half each of Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and Lake Huron, and smaller areas of Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie. It includes an estimated 11,000 inland lakes. It encompasses 58,110 square miles (150,500 km ²) of land, 38,575 square miles (99,910 km ²) of Great Lakes waters, and 1,305 square miles (3,380 km ²) of inland waters. Its territorial waters are second in area only to those of Alaska. At a total area of 97,990 square miles (253,800 km ²) - including those territorial waters - Michigan is the largest state east of the Mississippi River, and the eleventh largest state overall. More than half of the state's land area - 30,156 square miles (78,100 km ²) - is still forest.

The state lies roughly between 41° and 49° north latitude, and between 82° and 91° west longitude.

Great Lakes

The Great Lakes that border Michigan from east to west are Lake Erie, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, and Lake Superior. Because of the lakes, Michigan has more lighthouses than any other state. The state is bounded on the south by the states of Ohio and Indiana, sharing land and water boundaries with both.

Michigan's northern boundaries are almost entirely water boundaries, from south to north, with Illinois and Wisconsin in Lake Michigan; then a land boundary with Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula, that is principally demarcated by the Menominee and Montreal Rivers; then water boundaries again, in Lake Superior, with Wisconsin and Minnesota to the west, capped around by the Canadian province of Ontario to the north and east.

The northern boundary then runs completely through Lake Superior, from the western boundary with Minnesota to a point north of and around Isle Royale, thence traveling southeastward through the lake in a reasonably straight line to the Sault Ste. Marie area. In Southeastern Michigan there is a water boundary with Canada along the entire lengths of the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair (including the First Nation reserve of Walpole Island) and the Detroit River. The southeastern boundary ends in the western end of Lake Erie with a three-way convergence of Michigan, Ohio and Ontario.

Upper Peninsula

The heavily forested Upper Peninsula is relatively mountainous in the west. The Porcupine Mountains, which are part of one of the oldest mountain chains in the world, rise to an altitude of almost 2,000 feet (610 m) above sea level and form the watershed between the streams flowing into Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. The surface on either side of this range is rugged. The state's highest point, in the Huron Mountains northwest of Marquette, is Mount Arvon at 1,979 feet (603 m). The peninsula is as large as Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island combined but has fewer than 330,000 inhabitants. They are sometimes called "Yoopers" (from "U.P.'ers"), and their speech (the "Yooper dialect") has been heavily influenced by the numerous Scandinavian and Canadian immigrants who settled the area during the lumbering and mining boom of the late nineteenth century.

The geographic orientation of Michigan's peninsulas makes for a long distance between the ends of the state. Ironwood, in the far western Upper Peninsula, lies 630 highway miles (1,015 km) from Lambertville in the Lower Peninsula's southeastern corner. The geographic isolation of the Upper Peninsula from Michigan's political and population centers makes the U.P. culturally and economically distinct. Occasionally U.P. residents have called for secession from Michigan and establishment as a new state to be called "Superior."

Lower Peninsula

The Lower Peninsula, shaped like a mitten, is 277 miles (446 km) long from north to south and 195 miles (314 km) from east to west and occupies nearly two-thirds of the state's land area. The surface of the peninsula is generally level, broken by conical hills and glacial moraines usually not more than a few hundred feet tall. It is divided by a low water divide running north and south. The larger portion of the state is on the west of this and gradually slopes toward Lake Michigan. The highest point in the Lower Peninsula is either Briar Hill at 1,705 feet (520 m), or one of several points nearby in the vicinity of Cadillac. The lowest point is the surface of Lake Erie at 571 feet (174 m).

A feature of Michigan that gives it the distinct shape of a mitten is the Thumb. This peninsula projects out into Lake Huron and the Saginaw Bay. The geography of the Thumb is mainly flat with a few rolling hills. Other peninsulas of Michigan include the Keweenaw Peninsula, making up the Copper Country region of the state. The Leelanau Peninsula lies in the Northern Lower Michigan region. See Also Michigan Regions

Lakes and rivers

Numerous lakes and marshes mark both peninsulas, and the coast is much indented. Keweenaw Bay, Whitefish Bay, and the Big and Little Bays De Noc are the principal indentations on the Upper Peninsula. The Grand and Little Traverse, Thunder, and Saginaw bays indent the Lower Peninsula. After Alaska, Michigan has the longest shoreline of any state, 3,288 miles (5,292 km). An additional 1,056 miles (1,699 km) can be added if islands are included. This roughly equals the length of the Atlantic Coast from Maine to Florida.

The state has numerous large islands, the principal ones being the Manitou, Beaver, and Fox groups in Lake Michigan; Isle Royale and Grande Isle in Lake Superior; Drummond, Marquette, Bois Blanc, and Mackinac islands in Lake Huron; and Neebish and Sugar islands in St. Mary's River. Michigan has about 150 lighthouses, the most of any U.S. state. The first lighthouses in Michigan were built between 1818 and 1822. They were built to project light at night and to serve as a landmark during the day to safely guide the passenger ships and freighters traveling the Great Lakes. See Lighthouses in the United States.

The state's rivers are small, short and shallow, and few are navigable. The principal ones include the Au Sable, Thunder Bay, Cheboygan, and Saginaw, all of which flow into Lake Huron; the Ontonagon, and Tahquamenon, which flow into Lake Superior; and the St. Joseph, Kalamazoo, Grand, Muskegon, Manistee, and Escanaba, which flow into Lake Michigan. The state has 11,037 inland lakes and 38,575 square miles (99,909 km ²) of Great Lakes waters and rivers in addition to 1,305 square miles (3,380 km ²) of inland water. No point in Michigan is more than 6 miles (9.7 km) from an inland lake or more than 85 miles (137 km) from one of the Great Lakes.

Protected areas

Main page: Protected areas of Michigan

The state is home to one national park: Isle Royale National Park, located in Lake Superior, about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Other national protected areas in the state include: Keweenaw National Historical Park, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Huron National Forest, Manistee National Forest, Hiawatha National Forest, Ottawa National Forest, Fumee Lake Natural Area and Father Marquette National Memorial. The largest section of the North Country National Scenic Trail also passes through Michigan.

With 78 state parks, 19 state recreation areas, and 6 state forests, Michigan has the largest state park and state forest system of any state. These parks and forests include Holland State Park, Mackinac Island State Park, Au Sable State Forest, and Mackinaw State Forest.

Michigan has a humid continental climate, although there are two distinct regions. The southern and central parts of the Lower Peninsula (south of Saginaw Bay and from the Grand Rapids area southward) have a warmer climate ( Köppen climate classification Dfa) with hot summers and cold winters. The northern part of the Lower Peninsula and the entire Upper Peninsula has a more severe climate (Köppen Dfb), with warm, but shorter summers and longer, cold to very cold winters. Some parts of the state average high temperatures below freezing from December through February, and into early March in the far northern parts. During the winter through the middle of February the state is frequently subjected to heavy lake-effect snow. The state averages from 30-40 inches (75-100 cm) of precipitation annually.

The entire state averages 30 days of thunderstorm activity per year. These can be severe, especially in the southern part of the state. The state averages 17 tornadoes per year, which are more common in the extreme southern portion of the state. Portions of the southern border have been nearly as vulnerable historically as parts of Tornado Alley. Farther north, in the Upper Peninsula, tornadoes are rare.

The geological formation of the state is greatly varied. Primary boulders are found over the entire surface of the Upper Peninsula (being principally of primitive origin), while Secondary deposits cover the entire Lower Peninsula. The Upper Peninsula exhibits Lower Silurian sandstones, limestones, copper and iron bearing rocks, corresponding to the Huronian system of Canada. The central portion of the Lower Peninsula contains coal measures and rocks of the Permo-Carboniferous period. Devonian and sub-Carboniferous deposits are scattered over the entire state.

The soil is of a varied composition and in large areas is very fertile, especially in the south. However, the Upper Peninsula for the most part is rocky and mountainous, and the soil is unsuitable for agriculture. The climate is tempered by the proximity of the lakes and is much milder than in other locales with the same latitude. The principal forest trees include basswood, maple, elm, sassafras, butternut, walnut, poplar, hickory, oak, willow, pine, birch, beech, hemlock, witchhazel, tamarack, cedar, locust, dogwood, and ash.

Images for kids

Regions in the Lower Peninsula.

Aerial view of Sleeping Bear Dunes

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Michigan consists of two peninsulas surrounded primarily by four of the Great Lakes and a variety of nearby islands. The Upper Peninsula is bounded on the southwest by Wisconsin, and the Lower Peninsula is bounded on the south by Indiana and Ohio.

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The Great Lakes cool the hot winds of summer and warm the cold winds of winter, giving Michigan a more moderate and somewhat moister climate than some other north-central states. Although the Upper Peninsula is cooler, the temperature ranges in Michigan’s far northern and far southern cities do not…

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How Detroit played a role in the Underground Railroad

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Map of Michigan's Freedom Trail

Take a virtual tour of the Underground Railroad in Michigan - also known as the "Freedom Trail" - with this interactive map.

Michigan has 23 sites highlighting notable people and places that were part of the Underground Railroad story in Michigan. These sites bring a wealth of information to highlight not only the sites' history and role in the Underground Railroad, but also the expression of civil rights.

View the interactive map

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Map of Michigan's Freedom Trail Take a virtual tour of the Underground Railroad in Michigan - also known as the "Freedom Trail" - with this interactive map. Michigan has 23 sites highlighting notable people and places that were part of the Underground Railroad story in Michigan.

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Underground Railroad | Detroit Historical Society

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The Underground Railroad was an early 1800s to 1865 secret network of financial, spiritual, and material aid for formerly enslaved people on their path from plantations in the American South to freedom in Canada. Freedom seekers generally made their way on foot, often at night, from one town to the…

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Modified: August 25, 2020 | Story by Frances Fabian-Moore | Photos by Second Baptist Church courtesy of the church

Welcome to Detroit, an international beacon of hope and freedom, unlike any other place in the world. If that doesn't sound like the Detroit you know, what if I told you that over 50,000 people - enough to fill Ford Field - escaped slavery and fled to Detroit on the Underground Railroad?

The Underground Railroad was a network of routes throughout the U.S. that led to Canada, where slavery was outlawed and everyone had equal protection under the law. Because of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, slaves captured in the northern U.S. could still be sent back to their slave owners. Detroit's "stations" (or hiding spots) were essential in the path toward freedom because of its close proximity to Canada.

Why was the Underground Railroad important?

Owning humans was legal in America until 1865, 100 years after the nation was founded based on principles of freedom and equality. Africans were enslaved by Europeans and subjected to the Triangular Trade, where traders transported captives from Africa to the Americas and Europe. African slaves were forced to live on their owner's land to farm or provide other services like weaving, cleaning, and masonry without compensation or the option to leave. The industry of slavery continued for hundreds of years and set the framework of the American economy and social order. This was the basis of what many call "the war against thy own neighbor", the Civil War. The Underground Railroad was created as a way to help slaves escape the horror of their conditions in the south and escape to freedom in the northern U.S. and Canada.

How did the Underground Railroad Work?

This secret system wasn't always underground, and it wasn't an actual railroad. Conductors were guides that led freedom seekers to the next safest hiding place, and station masters fed and housed them for a short time before their daring departure. Movies show sensationalized versions of these risky capers, but it's important to note that the decades of success of the Underground Railroad is credited to how smartly the persecuted hid in plain sight. These freedom seekers or pilots would disguise themselves, hid as cargo, travel through tunnels, and even trek along river banks to avoid the scent of hound dogs.

Maps were rarely available, so escapees used maps sewn into quilts, directions disguised as songs, star constellations, or even the moss on trees to determine a northern bearing.

The Underground Railroad persisted for over 40 years until the end of the Civil War and the passing of the 13th Amendment, which made abolition official. The Underground Railroad consisted of about 3,000 members of various origins and denominations, who by 1861 helped 75,000 people find freedom-many of which escaped through Detroit.

Next Stop: Midnight

For so many who were brought or born here under the tyranny of slavery saw Detroit as the light toward a brighter future. Detroit was known as Midnight, and the final stop before reaching Canada-a country that outlawed the practice of slavery. Michigan is important in that legacy, and Detroit is the embodiment of freedom's unbroken spirit. Which gives new eyes on the meaning of our Spirit of Detroit, doesn't it?

Underground Railroad Historical Sites in Detroit

There are still several historical sites in Detroit where you can literally stand in the spaces where escaped slaves persevered to reach freedom.

Gateway to Freedom Marker: Located in Hart Plaza, this statue is undoubtably an international symbol of freedom, overlooking the Detroit River. You see children behind the monument, beckoning others to join as a conductor guides this group to safety.

Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church: Started in 1839 as the Colored Methodist Society, it was instrumental in the Underground Railroad at both of its early locations, but the impressive congregation currently stands on 5050 St. Antoine St.

Second Baptist Church: Croghan Street Station is in the basement of Second Baptist Church in what is now Detroit's Greektown neighborhood. The street the church is now on was honorably renamed after Rev. William C. Monroe, who was a conductor on the Underground Railroad at this particular stop. This basement hiding spot was refuge to about 5,000 escaped slaves.

Mariner's Church: A sanctuary for seamen seeking spiritual refuge and was conveniently located steps away from the Detroit River. When the church was moved in 1955 to make way for a new civic center, construction workers discovered a tunnel that went under the river to Canada that was used in the Underground Railroad

George DeBaptiste's Home: Born a free man, this entrepreneur and statesman helped former slaves escape to freedom across the river from Detroit to Canada. He purchased a steamship piloted by a white man that was disguised as a commercial vessel, but was really used to transport slaves across the river. Although his home is no longer standing, the site is marked at East Larned and Beaubien street. DeBaptiste is also buried at Detroit's Elmwood Cemetery.

Finney Hotel: The Finney Hotel once stood on the southeast corner of Woodward and Griswold street of downtown Detroit. Seymour Finney was a tailor, who later became a hotelkeeper was deeply supportive of the abolitionist cause. He served the cause as a conductor long before talks of reconstruction. His historic marker is located on the northeast corner of State and Griswold.

Tommy's Detroit Bar & Grill: The building that houses this sports bar is rumored to have once been a part of the Underground Railroad (and Prohibition for that matter). There is a tunnel below the bar that is believed to be an escape route during both periods in history.

Underground Railroad Tours in Detroit

Station House Tour at First Congregational Church: Hosted by the Underground Railroad Living Museum, this tour is a reenactment where guests will be transformed into passengers on the Underground Railroad and be lead to freedom by a conductor.

City Tour Detroit: Book their Detroit Underground Railroad walking tour and you will be able to retrace the steps of former slaves. This tour includes a powerful reenactment by actors inside the Croghan Street Station.

Detroit Historical Museum: The Doorway to Freedom exhibition walks visitors through Detroit's entire history as part of the Underground Railroad. One part of the exhibit allows visitors to literally walk the path to freedom on an experiential trail.

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Detroit's Underground Railroad History & Historical Sites | VisitDetroit.com

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Modified: August 25, 2020 | Story by Frances Fabian-Moore | Photos by Second Baptist Church courtesy of the church Welcome to Detroit, an international beacon of hope and freedom, unlike any other place in the world.

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Harriet Tubman’s Escape to Freedom | The Underground Railroad

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The History Of Motown Records - Music School

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Berry Gordy Jr. and Motown video for kids | Black History Heroes | Caleb With Curls

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Native Americans were the first people to live in the area that is now Detroit. The Huron and related peoples were there when the first non-Indians arrived. In 1701 a French soldier and trader named Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac built a fort near the strait connecting Lake Erie and Lake Saint Clair, naming it Fort-Pontchartrain-du-Détroit. The fort became an important fur-trading post.

In 1760, during the French and Indian War, the British took control of the fort. They fended off an attack by Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa people in 1763. The British continued to control the fort, which they called simply Detroit, even after the United States won its independence in 1783. The United States finally took possession of the fort in 1796.

Detroit was made the capital of the newly organized Michigan Territory in 1805. In 1815 it was officially designated as a city. Advances in transport around this time opened up Detroit to people and materials, paving the way for growth and industrial development. Steamboat service on Lake Erie began in 1818. The Erie Canal was completed in 1825, greatly reducing travel time between Detroit and the East Coast. Railroads came to the city in the 1830s. In 1837 Detroit became the capital of the newly created state of Michigan, but it gave up the title to Lansing in 1847.

Detroit developed into a manufacturing center in the decades after the American Civil War (1861-65). In the 20th century it became the automobile capital of the world under the leadership of Henry Ford. In about 1914 Ford introduced the assembly-line method of manufacturing, which allowed workers to assemble products quickly and in large numbers. It forever changed the way factories operated. During World War I and World War II, in the first half of the 20th century, Detroit's factories produced weapons and other materials for the armed forces. Later, automobile production soared.

During the period of industrial growth from 1850 to 1950, Detroit's population grew dramatically. First European immigrants and then African Americans from the South flocked to the city in search of factory jobs. In the mid-1950s, however, the city's population began to fall. Many businesses and much of the white community moved to the suburbs, leaving the city in decline. The poverty in many parts of Detroit has been blamed for riots that caused extensive damage to the city in 1967. The loss of jobs in the automobile industry added to Detroit's problems.

In the early 2000s, however, several construction projects began to bring new life to the city's downtown. Such projects included a new stadium for the Detroit Tigers baseball team, new housing and restaurants, and a series of connected parks and plazas along the riverfront. Population (2020) 639,111.

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Native Americans were the first people to live in the area that is now Detroit. The Huron and related peoples were there when the first non-Indians arrived. In 1701 a French soldier and trader named Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac built a fort near the strait connecting Lake Erie and Lake Saint Clair, naming it Fort-Pontchartrain-du-Détroit.

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Michigan is a unique state in that it consists of a series of peninsulas carved by glaciers and now surrounded by some of the largest freshwater lakes in the world. Because of this, there are a number of different natural resources around the state that can be used to the locals' benefit yet also should be protected.

Copper

Michigan exhibits a geological diversity in its minerals, which are in the rocks and below ground all around the state. A large amount of copper can be found within the state, left behind in two forms: metallic or native copper ore and non-metallic copper ore, known as chalcocite. There are more native copper deposits than anywhere else in the world, according to "A Citizen's Guide to the Natural Environment," which was put together by the state's legislature in 2001. In the 19th century Michigan produced more copper than any other place in North America. Because of the economic cost of extraction and the strain that the copper mining put on the natural environment, the last Michigan copper mine was closed in 1995.

Iron, Sand, and Gravel

Like the large copper deposits in Michigan, there is also a large amount of iron ore spread all over the state. The majority of these deposits have been depleted from past mining, and there are now very strict regulations on mining ore because of the fact that it causes a large amount of environmental harm. Only a few different companies are allowed to mine for iron ore within the state. Sand and gravel are also plentiful mining resources in Michigan. Large sand dunes exist in the western region of the state, left over from when glaciers cut the land hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Salt

One of the world's largest accumulations of salt can be found in the state of Michigan, according to "A Citizen's Guide to the Natural Environment." The Salina Formation, the thickest salt bed in the state, lies under Michigan's lower peninsula, with its thickest point being 3,100 feet from top to bottom. The state was either first or second in the nation in salt production from the late 1800s to 1983. After 15 years of closure, the Detroit salt plant reopened in 1998.

About the Author

Hailing from Austin, Texas, Daniel Westlake has written under pen names for a myriad of publications all over the nation, ranging from national magazines to local papers. He now lives in Los Angeles, Calif. but regularly travels around the country and abroad, exploring and experiencing everything he can.

Photo Credits

Michigan Lighthouse image by Shauna Caplinger from Fotolia.com

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Michigan is a unique state in that it consists of a series of peninsulas carved by glaciers and now surrounded by some of the largest freshwater lakes in the world. Because of this, there are a number of different natural resources around the state that can be used to the locals' benefit yet also should be protected.

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In 1907, Ben and Perry Feigenson started bottling lager beer, mineral water and soda water. Recent Russian immigrants to Detroit, the brothers were trained as bakers. While packaging their soda water, they began playing around with the idea of creating soft drinks based on their frosting flavors.

Their carbonated soda "pop" - nicknamed because of the sound it made when the lid popped off - was bottled in a small plant on Benton Street. The initial flavors were fruit punch, strawberry and grape, which they sold fresh from a horse-drawn wagon the day after it was made.

The brothers formed the Feigenson Brothers Bottling Works, and in 1920 changed the name to Feigenson Brothers Company. In a clever marketing move, "Faygo" was adopted as the brand name in 1921. They moved their growing bottle works to Gratiot Avenue in 1935, where Faygo pop is still created today.

The brothers ran the company until the mid-1940s, when they ceded control to their sons. In the 1950s Faygo was sold only in Detroit and Michigan because it had a limited shelf life. At that time, chemists determined that impurities in the water prevented the pop from staying carbonated. A new water filtration system was installed, improving shelf life to more than a year.

Faygo became popular outside of Michigan in the late 1960s when the company began advertising during televised Detroit Tigers games. Ads featuring the "Faygo Kid" and heartwarming jingles became instantly recognizable and very popular.

In 1985, the Feigenson family sold the Faygo Beverage Inc. to National Beverage Company, based in Florida. National Beverage, which also owns the Shasta soda pop brand, still operates the Detroit bottling works. Many of the employees have worked for Faygo for over 30 years. Today, Faygo comes in over 30 flavors and is sold in many states east of the Mississippi River. The most popular Faygo flavor remains one of the Feigenson brothers' earliest creations: Redpop.

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In 1907, Ben and Perry Feigenson started bottling lager beer, mineral water and soda water. Recent Russian immigrants to Detroit, the brothers were trained as bakers. While packaging their soda water, they began playing around with the idea of creating soft drinks based on their frosting flavors.

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Known for their potato chips, the Better Made Snack Food Company has been a Detroit institution since 1930. Better Made is the lone survivor of the potato chip companies that sprang up in the early decades of the twentieth century, in a city that devours the snack.

Created in 1853, the potato chip did not catch on as a snack food until after World War I. The origin of Better Made varies depending on the family member relating it, according to historian Karen Dybis. In one account, the Best Maid potato chip company, founded in 1929 by Ernest Nicolay and Russell Dancey, hired Cross Moceri as a salesman. Best Maid became New Era and Moceri left to form his own company with Peter Cipriano. The two had been making chips at home after their day jobs. New Era would become Better Made's chief competitor over the years.

Whatever preceded, in 1930, two entrepreneurial Detroiters and Sicilian immigrants, Cross Moceri and Peter Cipriano, became partners in a potato chip business first known as Cross & Peters Company. Their Better Made chip brand was established in 1934, playing off the name of Best Maid.

The business moved from its home operation to East McDougall Street where their success took hold. The company had retail branches throughout the city, some next door to movie theaters, at a time when concession stands were unknown. Chips were first sold in hand-stapled bags of waxed paper, sometimes hawked door-to-door or from stands on Belle Isle. In the mid-1940s the company moved to a spot on Woodward Avenue near the Fox Theatre. After World War II, needing room for expansion, they settled into their current location on Gratiot Avenue between Harper Avenue and French Road.

At one time there were over 20 potato chip manufacturers in Detroit. The New Era company merged with Frito in 1958, who merged with Lay in 1961. To compete with national brands, Better Made produced its first flavored chip, barbecue, in 1973, with a sour cream chip & onion chip following. Over time Better Made has diversified its products, offering different cuts in numerous flavors. The plant also makes several types of corn chips, pork rinds, popcorn, pretzels, cheese puffs, dips and salsas.

Better Made relies on quality ingredients of potatoes, salt and cottonseed oil, and freshness. Their products can be bought directly from the factory, just hours old, or have them shipped anywhere in the world. Better Made processes over 60 million pounds of potatoes annually, in a process that transforms them into chips in approximately seven minutes.

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Better Made Snack Food Company | Detroit Historical Society

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Known for their potato chips, the Better Made Snack Food Company has been a Detroit institution since 1930. Better Made is the lone survivor of the potato chip companies that sprang up in the early decades of the twentieth century, in a city that devours the snack.Created in 1853, the potato chip di…

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One of the nation's oldest soft drinks, Vernor's Ginger Ale was first served to the public in 1866. The drink was created by Detroiter James Vernor, a well-respected pharmacist with a reputation for meticulous care with his prescriptions.

James Venor began his career as an errand boy at Higby & Stearns Drug Store in 1858, later becoming a junior clerk. Experimenting with a medicinal tonic of vanilla and spices, adding ginger to calm the stomach, he left the mixture in an oak barrel when he went to serve in the Civil War in 1862. The popular story is that when Vernor returned from the war, he opened the barrel and was surprised by its delicious contents. The beverage had a zesty, sweet, gingery flavor that was accentuated by the wood's aging process. However another claim, backed by a family member, is that Vernor did not create the formula for his drink until after the Civil War.

He opened his own pharmacy in 1866 and for several years, Vernor's soda fountain was the only place where one could purchase the beverage. As demand grew Vernor began to sell his product to other soda fountains, requiring them to install special equipment in order to properly serve the soda. Vernor was vigilant about each ingredient, including the carbonated water, which he also sold, with which the extract was mixed, reportedly treating the soda with the same consistency and attention that he paid to his prescriptions. As its fame grew, Vernor's became available throughout the Midwest. A plant was soon opened in Detroit so that Vernor's could be mass produced locally. The factory continually expanded with the company's increasing success. The company's last plant was at 4501 Woodward Avenue in what is now Midtown, and featured a block long glass front that revealed the bottling process.

James Vernor II became president of the company in 1896, and the company remained in family hands until 1966. James Vernor was 84 when he passed away in 1927. His family joked that he did not retire until just hours before his death.

Vernor's and the City of Detroit grew together. A massive sign that illuminated the company logo was located along the Detroit River where ferries took passengers to Windsor, Bob-lo, and Belle Isle. In the 1940s, a shop opened along the river that allowed visitors to watch soda production as they enjoyed their drinks.

A highly carbonated beverage, Vernor's is often used to cure stomachaches or mixed with lemon juice and served hot to nurse a sore throat or cough. A popular dessert beverage, the Boston Cooler, pairing vanilla ice cream with Vernor's soda, took its name from the generic term used in the early 20 th century for any drink mixing ice cream and soda, not from Boston Boulevard. The Vernor's Company copyrighted the Boston Cooler name in 1967 when it was used for their Vernor's flavored ice cream bar. The Detroit confectionary chain Sanders also made a Vernor's-flavored ice cream at one time.

Sometime at the end of the 1950s, the name lost its apostrophe and became simply Vernors. The Vernor family sold the company to an investment group in 1966; it was later owned by American Consumer Products, United Brands and then A&W Beverages. Purchased by Cadbury-Schweppes in 1993, today Vernors is part of Dr. Pepper Snapple, one of the nation's largest beverage producers.

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Vernor's Ginger Ale | Detroit Historical Society

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One of the nation's oldest soft drinks, Vernor's Ginger Ale was first served to the public in 1866. The drink was created by Detroiter James Vernor, a well-respected pharmacist with a reputation for meticulous care with his prescriptions.James Venor began his career as an errand boy at Higby & Stearns Drug Store in 1858, later becoming a junior clerk.

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It all started with a passionate dream and a borrowed barrel of sugar on June 17, 1875.

That's the day Fred Sanders Schmidt, commonly known as Fred Sanders opened his first chocolate shoppe in Detroit. By the 1940's and 1950's, Sanders® products and chocolate shoppes were woven into the lives of Michigan families. Sanders® soon became the leading source of confections in the region and started selling directly to national supermarket chains, as well as to other retailers in the Detroit area. Eventually, there were more than 57 locations in the Great Lakes Region offering chocolate candies, ice cream, dessert toppings and baked goods. These early shoppes were also known for providing light lunches and an assortment of fountain counter specialties including ice cream sodas, hot fudge sundaes and the famous Sanders® Hot Fudge Cream Puffs.

More than 140 years after the first Sanders® doors opened, we still believe in Fred's simple mission to provide premium confections at a fair value. We use the finest real ingredients to make our products and never sacrifice quality to save on costs because confections shouldn't only taste great, they should be made great!

Today, Sanders® is an iconic national brand with items like its Bumpy® Cake, hot fudge toppings, Milk Chocolate Pecan Clusters, and sea salt caramels enjoyed all over the United States and overseas. In 2018, Sanders® became a division of Kar's Nuts, a leading manufacturer of nut and trail mix snacks with its own rich Detroit history dating back to 1933. Sanders® products are currently sold in leading retailers nationally and online at sanderscandy.com. It also operates 2 Sanders® Chocolate & Ice Cream Shoppes.

Follow Sanders® on Facebook and Instagram to get the latest updates and share your fond memories!

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It all started with a passionate dream and a borrowed barrel of sugar on June 17, 1875. That's the day Fred Sanders Schmidt, commonly known as Fred Sanders opened his first chocolate shoppe in Detroit. By the 1940's and 1950's, Sanders® products and chocolate shoppes were woven into the lives of Michigan families.

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Black Bottom Neighborhood | Detroit Historical Society

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Black Bottom was a predominantly Black neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan demolished for redevelopment in the late 1950s to early 1960s and replaced with the Lafayette Park residential district and a freeway. It was located on Detroit’s near east side, bounded by Gratiot Avenue, Brush Street, the Det…

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The Motown Record Corporation, or Motown (also called Hitsville recording company), was founded by Berry Gordy, Jr., in Detroit, Michigan, in January 1959. The record company became one of the most successful black-owned businesses and one of the most influential independent record companies in American history. The company gave its name to the hugely popular style of soul music that it created.

Gordy's family moved from Georgia to Detroit as part of the massive migration of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the South during and after World War I; they were lured largely by the promise of work in Northern manufacturing industries such as Detroit's auto plants. Gordy's parents, hardworking entrepreneurs, instilled in their children the gospel of hard work and religious faith. They also played a major role in financing Gordy in his early years in the music business.

After Gordy made an attempt at a professional boxing career and served a stint in the army during the Korean War, he entered the music business. He briefly owned a jazz record store, but his true love was songwriting. Although he could not read music, he demonstrated a distinct ability to gauge whether a song had the elements of popular appeal. Before forming Motown, Gordy tried to make it as an independent songwriter and record producer, cowriting hit songs for artists such as Jackie Wilson, another former boxer and Detroiter. Despite his success, Gordy remained on the fringes of the popular-music business, making very little money, until he discovered William ("Smokey") Robinson, a Detroit high schooler with a soothing falsetto and an ear for sweet lyrics.

In 1959, not long after recording Robinson's group, the Miracles, for New York-based End Records and establishing Jobete Publishing Company, Gordy began Motown Records (its name derived from Detroit's nickname, "Motor City"). A number of factors came together to make Motown's success possible at this time. First, after World War II, big-band swing, the dominant popular dance music in the United States during the Great Depression, became passé. Big musical units were no longer economically feasible. Jazz had been taken over by a new group of Young Turk stylists; calling themselves beboppers, they were inclined to play music for listening rather than dancing.

Second, a new urban dance music, rhythm and blues, was ascendant. Emerging primarily from inner-city ghettos and popularized by such bandleaders as Louis Jordan and Lionel Hampton, rhythm and blues was almost exclusively recorded by small independent labels. Of the three major recording companies-Columbia, Capitol, and Decca-only the last showed any interest in the exciting new music that would spawn rock and roll. During the 1950s it was possible for a young entrepreneur with an ear for this music to start a moderately successful independent company producing a sound that appealed to young people and inner-city African Americans.

Third, by the late 1950s two other black-owned independent record companies that specialized in rhythm and blues and rock and roll had been enjoying considerable success for nearly a decade-Peacock Records, formed in Houston, Texas, by Don Robey, and Vee Jay Records, formed in Chicago, Illinois, by Vivian Carter Bracken, James Bracken, and Calvin Carter. Therefore, Gordy was not going into completely uncharted territory as a black music entrepreneur. In 1959, the year Gordy founded Motown, Harry Belafonte became the first black to produce a Hollywood (California) film, Odds Against Tomorrow, through his own company. The social change promised by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka school desegregation decision and the new civil rights activism made this a heady time indeed to be an enterprising African American; anything seemed possible. Moreover, black radio had become a force in the marketing of popular music after World War II. This gave black listeners great clout as consumers and made it possible for black record-company owners to market their wares directly to this growing audience.

During the 1960s Motown became one of the reigning presences in American popular music, along with the Beatles. Gordy assembled an array of talented local people (many of whom had benefited from the excellent music education program at Detroit public schools in the 1950s) at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, destined to become the most famous address in Detroit. Serving as both recording studio and administrative headquarters, this two-story house became the home of "Hitsville." Motown's roster included several successful solo acts, such as Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder (a star both as a child and as an adult), and Mary Wells. In addition to the Miracles, who notched Motown's first million-selling single, "Shop Around" (1960), there were several young singing groups, including the Temptations, Martha and the Vandellas, and the Marvelettes. There also were a number of somewhat older groups that scored big, such as the Four Tops, the Contours, and Junior Walker and the All-Stars. A number of acts that were not developed by Motown wound up enjoying hit records during a stint with the company, including the Isley Brothers and Gladys Knight and the Pips.

Yet, despite the considerable acclaim these performers garnered, no Motown act of the 1960s matched the success of the Supremes, a girl group that scored number one hits with "Where Did Our Love Go," "Baby Love," "Come See About Me" (all 1964), "Stop! In the Name of Love," "Back in My Arms Again," "I Hear a Symphony" (all 1965), "You Keep Me Hangin' On," "You Can't Hurry Love" (both 1966), and "Love Is Here and Now You're Gone" (1967). Not only were they the second most successful singing group of the decade-surpassed only by the Beatles-but they remain the most successful female singing group of all time. The group's glamorous lead singer, Diana Ross, went on to a remarkable solo career as a singer and a moderately successful career as an actress.

Motown's songwriters and producers also became household, or at least familiar, names. Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland, who wrote and produced all of the above-mentioned Supremes hits (as well as several of their other successful recordings), were nearly as famous as the Supremes themselves. In addition to writing hit songs for the Supremes, they had success with material crafted for Martha and the Vandellas, the Four Tops, and Marvin Gaye. Later they squabbled with Gordy over money, which resulted in a nasty lawsuit and their departure from the company-events that were major industry news.

Motown had an extraordinary house band (known as the Funk Brothers) made up of some of the best nightclub and bar musicians in black Detroit, including Earl Van Dyke on keyboards, Benny Benjamin and Uriel Jones on drums, and James Jamerson on bass. They played a huge role in the development of the Motown sound, a branch of soul music that featured more-sophisticated arrangements and orchestration than the grittier Southern soul that contemporaneously flourished at Stax Records as the Memphis Sound. Motown brought together rhythm-and-blues, gospel, and pop influences as it sought to "cross over" (i.e., move beyond single-genre listeners) to reach a wide audience that included white teenagers. Motown records were specifically mixed to sound good on car radios and were characterized by a thumping backbeat that made dancing easy for everyone. Motown sought to be and became the "Sound of Young America." Standing in the Shadows of Motown, a documentary chronicling the Funk Brothers' years with Motown, was released in 2002.

Despite its great number of hits, Motown was actually a small company, but it was run with unmatched efficiency. Gordy prided himself on having learned from a brief stint on the assembly line at an auto plant about producing a quality product. He had rigorous quality-control meetings, and only records that could pass the harsh criticism of his assembled brain trust were released. As a result of Gordy's stringent measures, at the height of its popularity (in the mid- to late 1960s), Motown enjoyed the highest hit ratio for its released singles of any record company in history. In truth, Gordy had to employ these extraordinary means if a company as small as his was to survive against bigger companies in the popular music business.

Artist development at Motown was comprehensive. Equal parts finishing school and academy of popular arts, the company provided its acts with elaborate choreography under the tutelage of Cholly Atkins. Young women raised in public housing projects, like the Supremes, were schooled in the social graces, and chaperones accompanied the package-tour bus cavalcades that brought Motown to other parts of the United States during the company's early years.

Motown enjoyed its greatest success between 1965 and 1968, when it dominated the Billboard charts. Although the company was never quite the force in the 1970s that it had been in the '60s (having lost several key performers), it was still a formidable enterprise with the Jackson 5, the Commodores, Wonder, and Ross. In 1971 Motown released what became, arguably, the most influential soul record ever, Gaye's What's Going On. In the late 1960s Detroit was wracked with violent race riots, and in the early '70s the company relocated to Los Angeles, California, where its move into filmmaking was generally fruitful. Motown's most famous film, Lady Sings the Blues (1972), starred Ross and was loosely based on the career of jazz singer Billie Holiday.

In the 1980s Gordy found it difficult to prosper in a music industry increasingly dominated by multinational conglomerates, and in 1988 he sold Motown to MCA, which later sold the company to PolyGram. Today the Motown label is part of the Universal Music Group. Motown remained a force in popular music-a vital, near-primal influence with stunning longevity. No one has quite been able to reproduce the classic Motown sound. Motown The Musical, a stage production based on Berry Gordy's autobiography, To Be Loved (1994), opened on Broadway in 2013. The show was nominated for four Tony Awards.

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The Motown Record Corporation, or Motown (also called Hitsville recording company), was founded by Berry Gordy, Jr., in Detroit, Michigan, in January 1959. The record company became one of the most successful black-owned businesses and one of the most influential independent record companies in American history.

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The Motown Effect- Short Documentary, Motown and Civil Rights

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Motown is an American record company. The record company was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, and was incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960, in Detroit, Michigan. The name, a portmanteau of motor and town, has also become a nickname for Detroit. Motown played an important role in the racial integration of popular music as an African American-owned record label that achieved significant crossover success. In the 1960s, Motown and its subsidiary labels (including Tamla Motown, the brand used outside the US) were the most successful proponents of what came to be known as the Motown Sound, a style of soul music with a distinct pop influence. During the 1960s, Motown achieved spectacular success for a small record company: 79 records in the Top Ten of the Billboard Hot 100 record chart between 1960 and 1969. Motown was very popular in the 1960s.

Following the events of the Detroit Riots of 1967 and the loss of key songwriting/production team Holland-Dozier-Holland the same year over pay disputes, Gordy began relocating Motown to Los Angeles, California. The move was completed in 1972, and Motown expanded into television and film production, remaining an independent company until June 28, 1994. Motown was later sold to PolyGram in 1994, before being sold again to MCA Records' successor Universal Music Group when it acquired PolyGram in 1999.

Motown spent much of the 2000s headquartered in New York City as a part of the Universal Music subsidiaries Universal Motown and Universal Motown Republic Group. From 2011 to 2014, it was a part of The Island Def Jam Music Group division of Universal Music. On April 1, 2014, Universal Music Group announced the dissolution of Island Def Jam; subsequently Motown relocated back to Los Angeles to operate under the Capitol Music Group. It now operates out of the landmark Capitol Tower.

For many decades, Motown was the highest-earning African American business in the United States. Motown Records was inducted into Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame class of 2018 on June 3, 2018 at the Charles H. Wright Museum. Motown legend Martha Reeves received the award for Motown Records.

Some of the artists who sang on the label include:

"Motown" can also refer to the city of Detroit itself, or to the genre of music made by artists like those listed above.

Images for kids

The Hitsville U.S.A. Motown building, at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Motown's headquarters from 1959 to 1968, which became the Motown Historical Museum in 1985

Berry Gordy House, known as Motown Mansion in Detroit's Boston-Edison Historic District

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Motown is an American record company. The record company was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, and was incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960, in Detroit, Michigan. The name, a portmanteau of motor and town, has also become a nickname for Detroit.

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Henry Ford's Railroad: Detroit, Toledo & Ironton

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The First Transcontinental Railroad for Kids | Bedtime History

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During the last election cycle, the residents of the counties comprising Greater Detroit were asked to approve a millage that would install a transit system linking the beleaguered region together. To call this decision monumental would be understating its importance to the health of Southeast Michigan's economy, attracting young citizens attuned to a carless lifestyle (who also might be inclined to work at the second headquarters of a Seattle-based online retailer), and limiting the sprawl of the suburbs.

In so many words, the multi-modal plan was: Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT, would flow through the main arteries of the area: Woodward, Gratiot, and Michigan; express lines would finally connect the Detroit Metropolitan Airport to the city core 20 miles away; regional rail would extend from leafy Ann Arbor to the heart of New Center in Detroit; cross-county connectors would comb through the grid and tie the counties together. An extensive plan, to be sure, but the area of our metro region is relatively extensive; it's also just normal. Why wouldn't someone be able to use public transit to go between Detroit and Detroit Metro Airport?

It failed-not spectacularly, but not without precedent. From the postwar period onward, Metro Detroit has consistently deprived itself of a functioning transit system. There seem to be underlying forces that have kept this region's transit deficiencies from becoming more robust.

"Perhaps the best opportunity to create a cohesive regional transit system for metropolitan Detroit occurred between the late 1960s and 1980, a period during which political will in support of regional transit peaked, and the federal government made public transit funding relatively abundant," writes Mario Goetz, in his paper A Dream Derailed. Despite the administrations of Governor William Milliken and Mayor Coleman Young working together, along with a Michigander (President Gerald Ford) in the White House, the balkanization of the metro region-fed, in part, by the legislature that effectively halted Detroit from annexing suburbs-allowed a deep parochialism and hyper-local isolationism to mature.

What was transit like before, as the population of Detroit swelled and the city matured? What did it try to be? To run through it quickly: in 1863, a horse-drawn streetcar begins service to a city with a land area of 12.7 square miles; the streetcar turns electric in 1892 under the administration of Mayor Hazen Pingree; in 1920, Mayor James Couzens vetoes plans for a subway (and the city council's override fails by a single vote); buses appear in 1925; in 1933, Detroit voters actually approve a subway, but the state advisory board denies construction.

By 1945, the streetcar system is running 908 cars on 19 routes; 11 years later, the service ends; in the early 1960s, President John Kennedy seeks solutions to urban decay by funding public transit; in 1967, the Southeast Michigan Transportation Authority (SEMTA) forms; in 1976, President Ford puts $600 million dollars on the table for Southeast Michigan to build a light rail system.

Throughout the 1970s, Governor Milliken, a moderate Republican in the vein of Nelson Rockefeller, continued to work at his designs of a public transit network with a strong brand of altruism, which was bolstered with the election of Mayor Coleman Young in 1974. In 1979, a multi-modal plan from SEMTA was to expand the bus system and park-and-rides, principally to connect with a proposed People Mover in the Central Business District; additionally, a Woodward Avenue light rail would connect the State Fairgrounds to the Riverfront, with an elevated section from 6 Mile to the Boulevard. As time went on, the plans became smaller in scope. Sound familiar?

SEMTA received the majority of its funding from grants, and the state was in economic decline. As the agency weakened, the Detroit News broke a story on the Oakland County Road Commission's attempt to derail the Woodward subway. By 1981, Ronald Reagan became president and the federal funding that was reserved for transit was largely cut.

One part of the plan did materialize, albeit years late. In 1987, the People Mover opened to fanfare and confusion. With a price tag of over $200 million dollars, the system was still 80% federally funded. It was the second automated monorail of its kind, behind the 1.9-mile Metromover in Miami. The trapezoidal loop connects thirteen stations around downtown Detroit, but the People Mover was never intended to be a standalone concept.

The automobile prevailed. But planning this region solely for the automobile has directly inhibited the quality of life of the residents. Even before the advent of the urban depressed freeway (the Davison in Highland Park) the governing aesthetic of metro Detroit had been the road. Michigan Avenue, a state highway running through Corktown, underwent a widening to be nine lanes wide. It has never recovered.

Two sentiments here are applicable: Andres Duany said, "the Department of Transportation, in its single-minded pursuit of traffic flow, has destroyed more American towns than General Sherman." And it was Lewis Mumford who said, "the right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar in an age where everyone possesses such a vehicle, is actually the right to destroy the city."

But what about those who don't drive? Don't forget the story the Detroit Free Pressbroke about James Robertson (aka the 'Walking Man') whose four-hour, 23-mile commute took him across communities that have 'opted-out' of bus service, from his home in Detroit to his auto job in Oakland County. Even with the context of this being a very broken system, it's a difficult story to swallow.

Before 1956, Detroit had the largest streetcar system in the nation. In fact, once upon a time, every major U.S. city had a streetcar system, and most of them were "torn out in a vast criminal conspiracy that is well documented" as Jeff Speck writes in Walkable City. The lines were bought and closed by National City Lines, a company created by General Motors, Mack Truck, Firestone Tire, and others. When the conspiracy was proven, a judge ordered the executives to be fined $1.

The streetcar has returned in the form of the 3.3-mile-long QLINE, which leaves most of the city and region out of its range. But remember there was once a plan worth building on-when the city, state, and national government cooperated better-to build a subway for that same avenue, once upon a time.

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A concise history of Detroit public transit

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During the last election cycle, the residents of the counties comprising Greater Detroit were asked to approve a millage that would install a transit system linking the beleaguered region together.

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The architecture of metropolitan Detroit continues to attract the attention of architects and preservationists alike. With one of the world's recognizable skylines, Detroit's waterfront panorama shows a variety of architectural styles. The post-modern neogothic spires of One Detroit Center refer to designs of the city's historic Art Deco skyscrapers. Together with the Renaissance Center, they form the city's distinctive skyline.

Detroit's architecture is recognized as being among the finest in the U.S. Detroit has one of the largest surviving collections of late-19th- and early-20th-century buildings in the U.S. Because of the city's economic difficulties, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has listed many of Detroit's skyscrapers and buildings as some of America's most endangered landmarks.

The suburbs contain some significant contemporary architecture and several historic estates.

Skyscrapers

At 12 stories, the steel-framed United Way Community Services Building (1895), at 1212 Griswold, originally known as the Chamber of Commerce Building, qualifies as Detroit's oldest existing historic skyscraper. The 10-story Hammond Building (1889), now demolished, is considered the city's first historic skyscraper. The Qube in the Detroit Financial District now stands on the Hammond Building site.

While some cities have demolished historic structures to make way for the new, Detroit has preserved a large number with many of its buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Even so, the city has many historic structures awaiting restoration. The most significant of these is the Michigan Central Station (1913) by Warren & Wetmore and Reed & Stem.

During the Roaring Twenties, Detroit's historic skyline arose. Louis Kamper designed the ornate Neo-Renaissance styled Book-Cadillac Hotel (1924), which opened as the world's tallest hotel at the time. The city's architectural legacy is rich in Art Deco style. Joseph L. Hudson, the department store magnate, had commissioned architect Hugh Ferriss to produce a series of renderings depicting new buildings for the city skyline. Hudson's department store window displayed the Ferriss drawings to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary as well as the opening of a new building for the Beaux-Arts, Italian Renaissance styled Detroit Institute of Arts (1927). Other architects would take up the task of designing the buildings roughly based on the Hugh Ferriss concepts which included the Guardian Building, the David Stott Building, the J.L Hudson Building, and others.

Albert Kahn Associates designed what is now Cadillac Place (1923), with its Neo-Classical architecture, for General Motors. Kahn, sometimes called the architect of Detroit, originally worked for John Scott, the architect of the Wayne County Building (1897). It opened as the second largest office building in the world. The seven Fisher brothers who owned the automotive company Fisher Body essentially gave architect Kahn a blank check to design and build the most beautiful building in the world. This became Detroit's famous Fisher Building (1927) which, with its detailed work, has been called the city's largest art object; its opulent three story barrel vaulted lobby is constructed with forty different kinds of marble. Albert Kahn Associates chief architect for the Fisher Building was Joseph Nathaniel French. The Fisher Building and Cadillac Place are among the National Historic Landmarks in Detroit anchoring the city's historic New Center.

Architect Wirt C. Rowland played an integral role in crafting the city's historic skyline with his designs for the Buhl, Penobscot, and Guardian buildings. Rowland's design for the Buhl Building (1925) included a Gothic Revival design with a clever blend of Romanesque accents. Renowned Art Deco skyscrapers include Rowland's Penobscot (1928) and Guardian (1929) and John M. Donaldson's David Stott Building (1929). Architectural tiles made from Pewabic Pottery by American ceramist Mary Chase Perry Stratton are a prominent feature in the Guardian Building's facade and decor.

Tallest buildings

Contemporary highlights

The Detroit area also contains a wealth of prominent skycrapers designed in the Modern, Postmodern, and Contemporary Modern architectural styles. With the notable exception of the 1001 Woodward (1965) building, Detroit's skyscrapers show less influence by the Chicago school of architecture and are more eastern in character. Minoru Yamasaki patterned his award winning design for the New York City's former World Trade Center towers after his design for Detroit's One Woodward Avenue (1962) in the Modern architectural style. Today, the city's restored historic skyscrapers stand beside the contemporary. Wirt Rowland's historic Penobscot Building (1928), in the heart of the Financial District's wireless Internet zone, blends with One Detroit Center (1993) and its neogothic spires as a fine example of post modern architecture by leading architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee.

The office market in Metro Detroit is one of the nation's largest, with 147,880,000 square feet (13,739,000 m ²). The Renaissance Center, with 5,552,000 sq ft (515,800 m ²), and the Southfield Town Center, with 2,200,000 sq ft (204,400 m ²), are large-scale examples of Contemporary Modern skyscraper complexes. Each mixed-use complex is an interconnected group of skyscrapers termed a city within a city.

Portman expanded on his earlier design for the Peachtree Plaza Hotel in Atlanta when designing the Renaissance Center in Detroit, beginning a new popular architectural era for the skyscraper hotel. (See Portman's Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles). In the ensuing decades, the Renaissance Center would undergo expansions joining the city's restored historic art deco skyscrapers to form the current skyline.

Stemming the flight of capital from the city proved difficult, however, as the suburban office market continued to grow, notably in Southfield and Troy. The Southfield Town Center, constructed from 1975 to 1989, became easy to recognize with its marque of five golden glass skyscrapers. It attracted tenants in competition with the Renaissance Center as Metro Detroit's office market continued its suburban expansion.

Portman designed the Renaissance Center with interior spaces, yet secure. It quickly became a symbol of the city of Detroit. In 1996, the Renaissance Center's design changed when General Motors purchased the entire complex for its new headquarters. The $500-million makeover of the complex included a $100-million renovation of the hotel. A new front door Wintergarden (2003) provides waterfront views and expanded retail space. Prior to completion of its renovation in 2003, some had criticized its circular corridors as confusing. Construction of a lighted glass walkway now facilitates ease of navigation encircling the interior mezzanine. A pedestrian-friendly glass entry way has replaced the former concrete berms along Jefferson Avenue.

The city, together with the Riverfront Conservancy, undertook another major project planned at $559-million along the Detroit International Riverfront to construct a three-mile (5 km) riverfront promenade park along the east river from Hart Plaza and the Renaissance Center to the Belle Isle bridge. Detroit Wayne County Port Authority added the Dock of Detroit (2005), a state of the art cruise ship dock on Hart Plaza near the Renaissance Center. A two-mile (3 km) extension along the west river will take the riverfront promenade park from Hart Plaza to the Ambassador Bridge (1929) for a total of five miles (8 km) of parkway from bridge to bridge. Michigan constructed its first urban state park, the William G. Milliken State Park and Harbor (2003). Three contemporary high-rise casino resort hotels in Detroit include the MGM Grand Detroit (2007) by SmithGroup, Motor City Casino (2007), and the 30-story Greektown Casino (2009). A fourth contemporary high-rise casino resort hotel, Caesars Windsor (1998/2008), is visible from the International Riverfront.

The suburb of Auburn Hills is home to the 15-story Chrysler Headquarters and Technology Center with its 5,300,000 sq ft (490,000 m ²) on 504 acres (2.04 km ²). CRSS Architects designed the Chrysler Technology Center (1993) in a cross-axial formation where its elongated atrium topped concourses converge with an octagonal radiant skylight at its center. The SmithGroup designed the attached contemporary Chrysler Headquarters (1996) tower in golden glass crowned with the pentastar emblem. The nearby The Palace of Auburn Hills (1988) by Rosetti is a sports arena that has served as a prototype for many others of its kind.

Future development

Between 1996 and 2006, downtown Detroit attracted more than $15 billion in new investment from private and public sectors. In 2011, Quicken Loans moved its company headquarters to downtown Detroit, consolidating suburban offices, a move considered to be of high importance to city planners to reestablish the historic downtown. Quicken has purchased office buildings in downtown Detroit and has considered new sites for new construction at the former Statler on Grand Circus Park and the former Hudson's location. Plans for a major residential and retail development adjacent to the Renaissance Center have been announced. In 2009, DTE unveiled a $50 million transformation of the landscape around its downtown headquarters into an urban oasis with parks, walkways, and a reflecting pool adjacent to the MGM Grand Detroit. Many residential lofts and high rises are under construction in the Detroit area. Renovation of historic buildings is a source of new development for the city of Detroit. The Inn at Ferry Street in the East Ferry Avenue Historic District and the Inn at 97 Winder in the Brush Park Historic District are examples of a successful Midtown restoration projects. Other historic restoration projects in Detroit include developments in the Midtown area, the Doubletree Guest Suites Fort Shelby, and the Westin Book-Cadillac Hotel. The Woodward Avenue Light Rail, beginning 2013, will serve as a link between the Detroit People Mover downtown and SEMCOG Commuter Rail with access to DDOT and SMART buses.

In January 2008, the City of Detroit unveiled a concept for a new Cadillac Centre, a $150 million mixed-use residential entertainment-retail complex attached to the Cadillac Tower. Architect Anthony Caradonna designed the Cadillac Centre concept in the postmodern architectural genre known as deconstructivism similar to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. The 24-story steel and glass twin-towers complex to be located on Campus Martius has been placed on hold. The futuristic Cadillac Centre would be located in Detroit's historic Monroe block, once a collection of eight antebellum commercial buildings cleared in 1990. The Pavilions of Troy, a $380 M mixed-use complex, is concept planned for the suburban city of Troy. Metro Detroit is second largest source of architectural and engineering job opportunities in the U.S. The University of Michigan, the University of Detroit Mercy, and Lawrence Technological University offer architectural degree programs.

Landmarks and monuments

Founded in 1701, Detroit contains the second oldest Roman Catholic parish in the United States. Consequently, Metro Detroit's many churches and cathedrals, though too numerous to list, are among its architectural gems and sites in the National Register of Historic Places. Churches dominated the city's post Civil War era skyline. The Gothic Revival architecture of Ste. Anne de Detroit Catholic Church (1887) by Alert E. French and Leon Coquard includes flying buttresses, displaying the French influence. Ste. Anne's displays the oldest stained glass in the city, located near the Ambassador Bridge. The Gothic styled St. Joseph Church (1873/1883) in the Eastern Market- Lafayette Park neighborhood by Francis G. Himpler is an authentic German Catholic Parish and an important site listed in the National Register of Historic Places, noted for its architecture and stained glass. In another German parish, Peter Dederichs designed the Pisan Romanesque styled Old St. Mary's Church (1885) in Greektown. The Gothic Revival cathedral styled Sweetest Heart of Mary (1893) in the Forest Park neighborhood area by Spier and Rohns is the largest Roman Catholic Church in Detroit.

The Gothic Revival styled Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament (1915) and the Cathedral Church of St. Paul (1911) by Ralph Adams Cram are both located along Woodward Avenue. Sculptor Corrado Parducci's work adorns many of Detroit's churches including the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament and the St. Aloysius Church (1930) in the Washington Boulevard Historic District. Among his Detroit projects, Gordon W. Lloyd designed the Christ Church (1863) at 960 E. Jefferson Avenue. Detroit's First Presbyterian Church (1891) is a fine example of Richardsonian Romanesque style by George D. Mason and Zachariah Rice. The Fort Street Presbyterian Church (1855), designed in a Victorian Gothic style with a steeple that rises 265 ft (81 m), is among the tallest churches in the United States.

The large concentration of Poles in the metropolitan Detroit resulted in a number of ornate churches in the Polish Cathedral style designed by noted architects. Henry Engelbert designed the Gothic styled St. Albertus (1885), Detroit's first Polish Catholic parish. Harry J. Rill designed St. Hedwig's (1915) and the Baroque styled St. Stanislaus (1913). Donaldson and Meier designed St. Hyacinth's (1924). Ralph Adams Cram designed the ornate Gothic styled St. Florian's Church (1928) at 2626 Poland Street in Hamtramck. Joseph G. Kastler and William B.N. Hunter designed the Victorian styled St. Josaphat's (1901) which has spires that line-up with the Renaissance Center towers when approaching the city on Interstate 75. The Historical Society at the Detroit Historical Museum provides information on tours of the area's many historic churches. The historic Beaubien House (c. 1851) at 553 East Jefferson houses the Michigan Society of Architects.

Campus Martius

Grand Circus

In 1805, Detroit experienced a devastating fire, which destroyed most of the city's French colonial architecture. Shortly afterward, Father Gabriel Richard said, Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus, meaning, We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes, which became the city's official motto. For Detroit, Justice Augustus B. Woodward devised a plan similar to Pierre Charles L'Enfant's design for Washington, D.C.. Detroit's monumental avenues and traffic circles fan out in a Baroque styled radial fashion from Grand Circus Park in the heart of the city's theater district.

Detroit's performance centers and theatres emanate from the Grand Circus Park Historic District and continue along Woodward Avenue toward the Fisher Theatre in the city's New Center. The ornate Fox Theatre (1928), by C. Howard Crane, near the Grand Circus is a National Historic Landmark which was fully restored in 1988. Crane also designed the Orchestra Hall along Woodward which is home to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. In Gothic revival design, St. John's Episcopal Church (1861) stands across from the Fox Theatre and beside Comerica Park along with Woodward Avenue's vintage street lights. Restored in 1996, the Detroit Opera House (1922), by Crane, faces Grand Circus Park. The grounds include antique statuary and old-fashioned water fountains. Architect Henry Bacon designed the Russell Alger Memorial Fountain (1921) in Grand Circus Park. The Russell Alger Memorial Fountain contains a classic Roman figure symbolizing Michigan by renowned American sculptor Daniel French.

Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Classical

In the late nineteenth century, Detroit was called the Paris of the West for its architecture and open public spaces, in keeping with the City Beautiful movement. Architects John and Arthur Scott designed the Wayne County Building (1897) in downtown Detroit. Expense was not a factor in construction of its lavish design. Topped with bronze quadrigas by J. Massey Rhind and an Anthony Wayne pediment by Edward Wagner, it may be America's finest surviving example of Roman Baroque architecture with a blend of Beaux-Arts. Stanford White, architect of Newport, Rhode Island's Rosecliff mansion, designed Detroit's Neoclassical Savoyard Centre (1900) at 151 Fort St. Belle Isle Park provides panoramic views of city skyline along the Detroit International Riverfront.

The Detroit area is home to light houses, yacht clubs, and many unique monuments. Examples include the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club (1929) and the Beaux-Arts Hurlbut Memorial Gate (1894) at Waterworks Park. The Detroit Historical Society has compiled an incomplete list with more than 122 public sculptures and monuments just near the downtown area, while Detroit1701 lists many additional downtown monuments. Architects such as Cass Gilbert who designed the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. also designed the marble Detroit Public Library (1921) in the Cultural Center Historic District and Belle Isle's exquisite marble James Scott Memorial Fountain. Frederick Olmsted, landscape architect of New York City's Central Park, designed Detroit's 982-acre (3.97 km ²) Belle Isle park. Marshall Fredericks' sculptures, which include the Spirit of Detroit, may be seen throughout the metropolitan area. Sculptor Corrado Parducci's work adorns many notable Metro Detroit buildings such as the Meadowbrook Hall mansion, the Guardian Building, the Buhl Building (1925), the Penobscot Building, the Fisher Building and the David Stott Building.

Metro Detroit's many architecturally significant landmarks extend beyond the city and include the French Gothic St. Paul on the Lake Catholic Church (1899) by Harry J. Rill in Grosse Pointe Farms, Kirk in the Hills Presbyterian (1958) in Bloomfield Hills by Wirt C. Rowland, and Christ Church Cranbrook (1928) by Bertram Goodhue in Bloomfield Hills.

Eliel Saarinen was the architect for the Cranbrook Educational Community in the Metro Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. Eliel's son, the famed modernist Eero Saarinen, designed a complex of buildings in the suburb of Warren, Michigan for General Motors known as the GM Technical Center. Sculptor Carl Milles' numerous works in Metro Detroit include those at Cranbrook Educational Community in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan such as Mermaids & Tritons Fountain (1930), Sven Hedin on a Camel (1932), Jonah and the Whale Fountain (1932), Orpheus Fountain (1936), and the Spirit of Transportation (1952) at the Detroit Civic Center.

Residential architecture

Downtown and New Center areas contain high-rise buildings, while the majority of the surrounding city consists of low-rise structures and single-family homes. The city's neighborhoods constructed prior to World War II feature the architecture of the times with wood frame and brick houses, larger brick homes in middle-class neighborhoods, and ornate mansions throughout the city's many historic districts and nearby suburbs such as Grosse Pointe. The oldest city neighborhoods are along the Woodward and Jefferson corridors, while newer city neighborhoods are found in the west and northeast.

High-rise residential buildings are found in neighborhoods along the International Riverfront and East Jefferson Avenue residential area extending toward Grosse Pointe and the Palmer Park neighborhood West of Woodward on the city's North end. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed a residential development for Detroit's East side Lafayette Park (1958-1965), including three high-rise residential buildings and over 200 townhouses. A successful 78-acre (320,000 m ²) urban renewal project, this development is the largest concentration of buildings designed by Mies van der Rohe in the world. Lafayette Park is near the architecturally significant St. Joseph's Catholic Church and the Eastern Market Historic District. The East side contains many architecturally distinctive homes such as those in the Indian Village and East Jefferson Avenue.

Some of the oldest extant working-class neighborhoods include those in the Southwest such Corktown, established by Irish immigrants and those in the middle-class West Vernor-Junction area. The Southwest is seeing redevelopment and construction of new homes and condos due in part to the city's expanding Mexicantown area surrounding Clark Park, which is near the architecturally significant Most Holy Redeemer Church and Ste. Anne de Detroit Catholic Church.

Detroit neighborhood historic districts contain notable residential architecture from the . Many architecturally significant late-19th- and early-20th-century mansions have been restored, such as those in Midtown's Brush Park neighborhood. The West Canfield, Woodbridge, and East Ferry Avenue neighborhoods are examples of Midtown's restored French Renaissance Revival, Second Empire, Romanesque, and Queen Anne architecture. Noted architect Gordon W. Lloyd designed the David Whitney House (1894) constructed with a jasper stone exterior. The Whitney House is now a fine restaurant at 4421 Woodward Avenue in Midtown. The East Canfield area nearby contains the Gothic revival styled Sweetest Heart of Mary Catholic Church.

Arden Park-East Boston (a National Historic district comprising Arden Park Boulevard and East Boston Boulevard, running for three blocks east of Woodward near the New Center Area) is noted for mansions built by the industrial giants of the 1910s and 1920s. Residents included the Dodge Brothers, J. L. Hudson, and Fred Fisher, the founder of Fisher Body. Fisher's residence on Arden Park (George D. Mason, 1918, with additions in 1923) is constructed of Indiana limestone in the Italian Villa style. It features elaborate stone carvings and intricate ironwork and was the subject of a 1926 "Fortune Magazine" discussion of "the harmony of materials and proportion in residential architecture." The nearby Boston-Edison neighborhood (comprising four residential blocks west of Woodward) features several Kahn residences, including the Benjamin Siegal residence (1915), the James Couzens house (1910), and one of Kahn's rare stucco residences, the Ernest Venn house (1908). Additional architecturally significant homes in the neighborhood include the Sebastian S. Kresge house, the Berry Gordy house, and one of the Henry Ford houses. Many architecturally distinctive homes are also located near the University of Detroit Mercy on the city's North end such as those in Palmer Woods and Sherwood Forest historic districts. The Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament is located near this corridor along Woodward Avenue.

The mansions of metropolitan Detroit are among the nation's grandest estates. Meadow Brook Hall (1929), the 110 room 88,000 sq ft (8,200 m ²) mansion of Matilda Dodge Wilson at 480 South Adams Rd. in the suburb of Rochester Hills, is the fourth largest in the United States. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the mansion is open to the public. The suburbs of Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills are replete with grandiose mansions. Albert Kahn designed the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House (1927) at 1100 Lakeshore Dr. in Grosse Pointe which is open to the public. Rose Terrace (1934-1976), the mansion of Anna Dodge, once stood at 12 Lakeshore Dr. in Grosse Pointe. Designed by Horace Trumbauer as a Louis XV styled château, Rose Terrace was an enlarged version of the firm's Miramar in Newport, Rhode Island. A developer, the highest bidder for Rose Terrace, demolished it in 1976 to create an upscale neighborhood. This gave a renewed sense of urgency to preservationists. The Dodge Collection from Rose Terrace may be viewed at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The Italian Renaissance styled Russell A. Alger Jr., House (1910), at 32 Lakeshore Dr., by architect Charles A. Platt serves as the Grosse Pointe War Memorial. The five Grosse Pointe communities feature a variety of newer and early-twentieth-century mansions which flank the shores of Lake St. Clair, one of the finest examples being Woodley Green (the Benson Ford House, 1934) by Hugh T. Keyes (considered "one of the most prolific and versatile architects of the period"). Bloomfield Hills also contains vast estates from the early to mid twentieth century, such as Albert Kahn-designed Cranbrook House on Saarinen's Cranbrook campus (called by The New York Times "one of the greatest campuses ever created anywhere in the world"). Next door on Vaughan Rd. is Keyes-designed Woodland, the estate of John Bugas.

There have also been some newer redeveloped upscale subdivisions in the Grosse Pointe, Bloomfield Hills, and Turtle Lake areas.

Photo gallery

A&E with Richard Guy Wilson, Ph.D.,(2000). America's Castles: The Auto Baron Estates, A&E Television Network.

A&E with Richard Guy Wilson, Ph.D.,(2000). America's Castles: Newspaper Moguls, Pittock Mansion, Cranbrook House & Gardens, The American Swedish Institute. A&E Television Network.

Ferry, W. Hawkins (1968). The Buildings of Detroit: A History. Wayne State University Press.

Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, Architectural Sculpture of America, unpublished manuscript

Nawrocki, Dennis Alan and Thomas J. Holleman (1980). Art in Detroit Public Places. Wayne State University Press.

Images for kids

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Architecture of metropolitan Detroit Facts for Kids

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The architecture of metropolitan Detroit continues to attract the attention of architects and preservationists alike. With one of the world's recognizable skylines, Detroit's waterfront panorama shows a variety of architectural styles. The post-modern neogothic spires of One Detroit Center refer to designs of the city's historic Art Deco skyscrapers.

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The Westin Book Cadillac Detroit is a historic skyscraper hotel located at 1114 Washington Boulevard in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Washington Boulevard Historic District. Designed in the Neo-Renaissance style, and constructed as the Book-Cadillac, it is part of Westin Hotels and embodies Neo-Classical elements and building sculpture, incorporating brick and limestone. Among its notable features are the sculptures of notable figures from Detroit's history-General Anthony Wayne, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, Chief Pontiac, and Robert Navarre along the ornate Michigan Avenue façade and copper-covered roof elements. The flagship hotel is 349 ft (106 m) tall with 31 floors, and includes 65 exclusive luxury condominiums and penthouses on the top eight floors. It reopened in October 2008 after completing a $200-million reconstruction project and contains the Roast restaurant and 24 Grille.

The hotel was developed by the Book Brothers-J. Burgess, Frank, and Herbert. The brothers sought to turn Detroit's Washington Boulevard into the "Fifth Avenue of the West." Part of that vision was the creation of a flagship luxury hotel to compete against the Detroit Statler Hotel three blocks to the north. They commissioned architect Louis Kamper, who designed their Book Building in 1917, to design the building. In 1917, the brothers bought the old Cadillac Hotel at the northeast corner of Michigan and Washington Blvd., but World War I material shortages delayed the start of work on their new hotel. Construction finally began in 1923, and the building, which bore part of the name of the old structure, was the tallest in the city and the tallest hotel in the world when it opened in December 1924.

The hotel cost $14 million to build and contained 1,136 guest rooms. Public spaces on the first five floors included three dining rooms, three ballrooms, a spacious lobby, and a ground floor retail arcade. On the hotel's top floor was radio station WCX, the predecessor to WJR. The hotel operated successfully until the Great Depression, when banks foreclosed and the Book brothers lost control in 1931. For much of the period after the Books lost ownership, the hotel was run by hotel industry pioneer Ralph Hitz's National Hotel Management Company.

On May 2, 1939, a meeting took place in the hotel lobby between New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig and team manager Joe McCarthy in which Gehrig told McCarthy to leave him out of the starting line-up from that day's game, ending his 2,130 consecutive games streak.

In 1951, Sheraton bought the hotel, renamed it the Sheraton-Cadillac Hotel, and undertook massive renovations. All public spaces except the ballrooms and Italian Garden were redone and escalators replaced the grand staircase. In 1975, with business declining and the hotel in need of another renovation, Sheraton sold the building to Herbert R. Weissberg and it became the Detroit-Cadillac Hotel. Ownership changed again in 1976, and it became the Radisson-Cadillac Hotel. In 1979 the Radisson chain sold the property, and it became the Book-Cadillac once again. Though it had been considered the city's top hotel for many years, the owners announced that the hotel would close due to declining occupancy. The city of Detroit, scheduled to host the 1980 Republican National Convention, did not want to face the prospect of losing more downtown hotel space, so in late 1979 the city entered into a partnership through the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation with the owners to keep the hotel open.

By 1983, it was decided that the only way to bring the hotel back to profitability was to convert it into a mixed-use property. The hotel's 1100 rooms were deemed too numerous to fill and were too small by modern standards. The plan would turn the building into the Book-Cadillac Plaza, a 12 floor, 550-room hotel and 11 floors of office space. The hotel closed its doors in October 1984 for the renovation, but those plans were quickly dashed as proposed construction cost soared, and Detroit's economic situation continued to deteriorate. For the next two years developers came and went. But with no one able to take on the increasingly complex renovation, in 1986 the contents were liquidated. After the sale, the hotel's retail tenants who had planned to stay through the renovation moved out and the building was shuttered, a state in which it would remain for the next 20 years. Time passed and the unmaintained property fell victim to time, the elements, vandalism, and urban scavengers.

In July 2003, after years of legal battles to fully acquire the building and to find a developer, the city of Detroit announced a $150 million renovation deal with Historic Hospitality Investments a subsidiary of Kimberly-Clark to turn the building into a Renaissance Hotel. Work started shortly after the announcement but came to a halt in November when construction crews discovered more damage than anticipated. The associated cost overrun caused Kimberly-Clark to back out of the deal. A new renovation plan through the Cleveland-based Ferchill Group was announced in June 2006, with the Book-Cadillac to become a Westin Hotel and Residences. Kaczmar Architects Inc. of Cleveland and interior design firm ForrestPerkins of Dallas completed design and historic renovation work on the project from August 2006 through to completion in the fall of 2008, with a grand opening celebration held on October 25, 2008.

Architecture

Architect Louis Kamper designed the hotel in the Renaissance Revival style at the corner of Washington Boulevard and Michigan Avenue. Abutting the hotel on the north was the headquarters of the Detroit Edison Company. The structure is a steel skeleton faced with beige brick and limestone accents.

The lower six floors are clad in limestone. On the ground floor it is carved into wide horizontal bands while floors two through five are smooth. Corinthian pilasters and columns separate the windows of the public rooms from the second to fifth floors with windows for the second and third floors contained in large arches. Windows on the fourth floor are framed by small balconies. Above the sixth floor, the exterior is beige brick with cornices at floors 7, 16 and 21. Ionic columns frame windows on floors 23 through 25. A large cornice encircled the 27th floor and was removed during an earlier renovation.

Limestone quoins accent three corners of the building which are capped with copper-clad ziggurats. The north and south sides have penthouse towers that extend to the 31st floor. When the north penthouse was reconstructed, it was built 18 ft (5.5 m) shorter to make the zigurrats the highest points of the building. The building sits atop three basements, which contain some inoperable mechanical equipment too large to remove during renovation.

On June 27, 2006, the Ferchill Group agreed to renovate the structure into a mixed-use hotel and condominium building including a 453-room Westin Hotel, and 65 condominium units priced above $280,000. ForrestPerkins completed interior designs for the project which cost $176 million and was completed in fall 2008. As part of the renovation some of the original decor of the Grand Ballroom (renamed the Venetian Ballroom) and Italian Garden was recreated. A three-story addition containing a new 11,000-square-foot (1,000 m ²) ballroom, pool, hot-tub, fitness center, spa, and additional conference space was built north of the hotel on the site previously occupied by the Detroit Edison Headquarters.

Across Shelby Street from the hotel, the Peoples' Outfitting building, also known as the Detroit Commerce Building, was demolished and replaced with a 10-story parking garage for hotel guests and residents. In 2017, apartments were built above the parking garage.

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Westin Book Cadillac Hotel Facts for Kids

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The Westin Book Cadillac Detroit is a historic skyscraper hotel located at 1114 Washington Boulevard in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Washington Boulevard Historic District. Designed in the Neo-Renaissance style, and constructed as the Book-Cadillac, it is part of Westin Hotels and embodies Neo-Classical elements and building sculpture, incorporating brick and limestone.

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The Greater Penobscot Building, commonly known as the Penobscot Building, is a class-A office tower in Downtown Detroit, Michigan. The 1928 Art Deco building is located in the heart of the Detroit Financial District. The Penobscot is a hub for the city's wireless Internet zone and fiber-optic network.

Upon completion, the Penobscot Building was the eighth-tallest building in the world, the fourth-tallest in America and the tallest outside of New York and Chicago. Rising 566 feet (173 m), the 47-story Penobscot was the tallest building in Michigan from its completion in 1928 until construction of the Renaissance Center hotel tower in 1977. Ally Detroit Center surpassed the Penobscot as the tallest office building in Detroit upon its completion in 1993. The framing elevation drawing of this building shows a height of 562.166 ft (171.348 m) to the highest roof, approximately 565.75 ft (172.44 m) to the parapet wall around the roof, and 654.166 ft (199.390 m) to the top of the warning beacon atop the antenna.

The Penobscot has 45 above-ground floors and two basement levels, for a total floor count of 47. Although the Penobscot Building has more floors than Ally Detroit Center (45 above-ground floors compared to 43 for Ally Detroit Center), the floors and spires of One Detroit are taller, with its roof sitting roughly 60 ft (18 m) higher than that of the Penobscot.

Name origin

The building is named for the Penobscot, a Native American tribe from Maine. Native American motifs in art deco style ornamentation is used on the exterior and the interiors. The following version of the choice of the name of the building is found in an undated publication believed to have been published concurrent with the buildings dedication in 1928:

An intimation of the Murphy family's early history, together with the expression of genuine sentiment regarding the beginnings of the Murphy fortune, is contained in the name of the Greater Penobscot Building...... Long before the Civil War days, Simon J. Murphy and his partner, then two lads who had grown up in the Maine woods obtained their first employment in one of the logging camps along the Penobscot River - a stream named for the powerful tribe of Penobscot Indians.

Architecture

The architect Wirt C. Rowland, of the prominent Smith Hinchman & Grylls firm based in Detroit, designed the Penobscot in an elaborate Art Deco style in 1928. Clad in Indiana Limestone with a granite base, it rises like a sheer cliff for thirty stories, then has a series of setbacks culminating in a red neon beacon tower. Like many of the city's other Roaring Twenties buildings, it displays Art Deco influences, including its "H" shape (designed to allow maximum sunlight into the building) and the sculptural setbacks that cause the upper floors to progressively "erode".

The opulent Penobscot is one of many buildings in Detroit that features architectural sculpture by Corrado Parducci. The ornamentation includes American Indian motifs, particularly in the entrance archway and in metalwork found in the lobby. At night, the building's upper floors are lit in floodlight fashion, topped with a red sphere.

The building's architect, Wirt C. Rowland, also designed other Detroit skyscrapers, such as the Guardian Building and the Buhl Building, in the same decade.

Penobscot Block

The tower is also connected to two older and smaller buildings, the 1905 Penobscot Building and the Penobscot Building Annex (1916). Together, the buildings comprise the Penobscot Block, located at Griswold Street and West Fort Street. The Greater Penobscot was the last portion of the complex to be developed.

On holidays, both the Penobscot Building and the nearby One Woodward Avenue light-up for the night, with red, white and blue for Independence Day and Canada Day; and red, white and green for the Christmas season. In addition, during the Christmas season, the Penobscot Building's radio broadcast tower is illuminated bright gold, to resemble a giant glowing Christmas tree topped with a flashing red beacon. The Penobscot Building has become a souvenir item along with other Detroit skyscrapers.

The first televisions in Michigan were sold in the retail space on the Griswold level of this building.

For a period of time in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was renamed the City National Bank Building, after its major tenant. When City National was acquired by another bank and renamed, the historic Penobscot name was revived.

The Penobscot Building is a contributing property in the Detroit Financial Historic District, and on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Caucus Club, a restaurant known for hosting influential business officials, was located in Penobscot from 1952 until 2012. On October 4, 2012, the restaurant announced that it would close by the end of that month. Early in her career, Barbra Streisand appeared as one of the lounge singers at the Caucus Club in 1961. Caucus Club reopened under new ownership in 2017, after an extensive renovation.

The tower apex once had "CNB" signs for a local bank that was formerly headquartered in the Penobscot Building.

For approximately 20 years ending in 2009, the building was home to radio station WJLB and its well-known 80s DJ, The Electrifying Mojo, who broadcast his nightly visits over Detroit from his 'Mothership'. The Electrifying Mojo is credited with exposing many Detroit Techno musicians to new audiences through his broadcasts.

The Smart Detroit Conference Center occupies space on the 13th floor, and includes Class A conference, meeting, or convention space.

The Wayne County Friend of the Court occupies floors between the sub-basement and eighth floor, making it the current largest tenant of the building.

Architectural details by Corrado Parducci

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The Greater Penobscot Building, commonly known as the Penobscot Building, is a class-A office tower in Downtown Detroit, Michigan. The 1928 Art Deco building is located in the heart of the Detroit Financial District. The Penobscot is a hub for the city's wireless Internet zone and fiber-optic network.

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The Guardian Building is a landmark skyscraper in the United States, located at 500 Griswold Street in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Financial District. The Guardian is a class-A office building owned by Wayne County, Michigan and serves as its headquarters. Built in 1928 and finished in 1929, the building was originally called the Union Trust Building and is a bold example of Art Deco architecture, including art moderne designs. At the top of the Guardian Building's spire is a large U.S. flag, complementing the four smaller flags atop nearby 150 West Jefferson. The building has undergone recent award-winning renovations. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 29, 1989, and the associated Detroit Financial District is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Guardian building includes retail and a tourist gift shop.

Architecture

The main frame of the skyscraper rises 36 stories, capped by two asymmetric spires, one extending for four additional stories. The roof height of the building is 496 ft (151 m), the top floor is 489 feet (149 m), and the spire reaches 632 ft (192.6 m). Its nickname, Cathedral of Finance, alludes both to the building's resemblance to a cathedral, with its tower over the main entrance and octagonal apse at the opposite end and to New York City's Woolworth Building, which had earlier been dubbed the Cathedral of Commerce. Native American themes are common inside and outside the building. Wirt C. Rowland, of the Smith, Hinchman & Grylls firm, was the building's architect. The building rises from a granite and stone six story base with two Corrado Parducci created sculptures flanking the Griswold Street entrance. The exterior blends brickwork with tile, limestone, and terra cotta. Rowland's attention to detail was meticulous. He supervised the creation of the colored brick cladding to achieve the desired color for the exterior. Afterward, the brick was marketed by the manufacturer as "Union Trust Brick" and after 1939, as Guardian brick". Rowland designed furniture for the bank's offices and his attention went as far as designing tableware, linens and waitress uniforms for a restaurant in the building.

The building's three story, vaulted lobby is lavishly decorated with Pewabic and Rookwood tile. The semi-circular exterior domes are filled with Pewabic Pottery; Mary Chase Perry Stratton worked closely with the architect in the design of the symbolic decorations. ( See Savage, infra.) A Monel metal screen divides the lobby from the banking hall on the second floor, the screen features a clock in the center designed by Tiffany. The building includes works by muralist Ezra Winter in the mosaic above the main lobby desk and the mural at the end of the banking hall. The large mosaic is of a pine tree and text that states the Union Trust Company's purpose for the building, "Founded on principles of faith and understating, this building is erected for the purpose of continuing and maintaining the ideals of financial services which promoted the organization of the institution". The mural highlights Michigan's industries such as manufacturing, farming and mining. In order to dampen the sound in the banking hall, its cement-plaster ceiling features a hand-painted canvas ceiling, which was stretched over a mat of horsehair.

Innovations

The Guardian Building featured innovations in both design and technology. The building's designer, Wirt Rowland, specified Monel metal in place of the commonly used brass and bronze for all exposed metalwork on the building, an innovation which was widely adopted, most notably on New York's Chrysler Building. Rowland dispensed with traditional forms of decoration, using instead colored materials (brick, stone, and terra cotta) set in geometric patterns on both the interior and exterior of the structure. The building's elevator system represented the first use of technology which automatically stopped the car level with the floor and opened the doors, tasks formerly handled by the operator.

The skyscraper was built by the Union Trust Company, founded in Detroit in 1890 by Senator James McMillan, and Dexter M. Ferry, along with investments from Russell A. Alger, Col. Frank J. Hecker, and Christian H. Buhl. During World War II, the Guardian Building served as the U.S. Army Command Center for war time production. The Guardian served various tenants as an office building in downtown Detroit. In 1982 it became the headquarters of Michigan Consolidated Gas Company ("MichCon") subsequent to the divestiture of MichCon by ANR Company in 1981. Under the leadership of President and COO Stephen E. Ewing, MichCon restored the lobby and vaulted ceilings on the first floor in 1986. It would stay MichCon's later to be called MCN Energy Group headquarters until the merger of MCN with DTE Energy in 2001. It was sold by DTE to a local real estate developer, the Sterling Group, in 2002.

The Sterling Group invested $14 million in the building and reopened the lobby to the public, which had only been accessible to employees after MichCon purchased the building.

On July 18, 2007, Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano announced it has entered into an agreement to purchase the Guardian Building to relocate its offices from the Wayne County Building. The deal was reportedly part of a larger deal worth $33.5 million in real estate purchases in downtown Detroit. The Guardian Building has become a souvenir item along with other Detroit skyscrapers.

Detroit Land Bank Authority, Guardian Cafe, Pure Detroit, Bank of America, Huron Capital, Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, Digerati, Downtown Realty, Eagle Security Services, ARC Document Solutions, EnSoul Yoga, Federal Criminal Attorneys of Michigan, Fischer, Franklin & Ford, Law Office of Ben Gonek & Joel Sklar, Law Office of Jeffrey Edison, Invest Michigan, Jacobs & Diemer, JetCast USA, Roncelli Construction Services, Attorney Kenneth Sebree, Superior Capital Partners, Tyme Engineering, Wade Trim, WSP,

Images for kids

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The Guardian Building is a landmark skyscraper in the United States, located at 500 Griswold Street in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Financial District. The Guardian is a class-A office building owned by Wayne County, Michigan and serves as its headquarters.

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Defining Michigan - K-12 Education Content - Michiganology

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The Defining Michigan subject area focuses Michigan history of colonization and settlement between 1787 and 1837.

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Underground Railroad in Detroit: Famous people, sites you may have never known about

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Michigan was anxious for statehood so that it might undertake a more ambitious program of internal improvements. The first constitution was enacted in 1835, but statehood was delayed until 1837 by the so-called Toledo War, a boundary dispute with Ohio. The "war" centred on what was known as the Toledo Strip, a narrow piece of land on the southern Michigan border that ran westward from Toledo (on Lake Erie) to the Indiana border. According to the Ordinance of 1787, which had established the Northwest Territory, the land should have gone to Michigan. Ohio claimed the land based on earlier, albeit inaccurate, surveys, however, because it wanted Toledo-the planned terminus of the Miami and Erie canals. In the end, Michigan relinquished its claims to Toledo and to the mouth of the Maumee River. In return, Michigan was awarded the western Upper Peninsula. (A small, eastern segment of the Upper Peninsula had already been part of Michigan Territory.) Although initially the agreement was widely scorned as an unequal exchange, it ultimately proved a boon for Michigan, which inherited the vast copper and iron riches of the Upper Peninsula.

In the wake of the frenzy of new settlement popularly called "Michigan Fever," the state grew very rapidly through the 1840s and '50s. Thousands of prospective agricultural settlers-including many who came from New York and the New England states via the Erie Canal and Lake Erie, as well as many who were foreign-born-established new homes in the state. Detroit and other leading cities profited, and in the 1840s rich iron and copper resources were discovered in the Upper Peninsula, drawing even more immigrants to the state. The state capital was moved from Detroit to the more central location of Lansing in 1847.

National tension over the slavery issue resulted in the formation of the present-day Republican Party at Jackson in July 1854, and throughout the American Civil War (1861-65) Michigan made major contributions to the Union cause. In so doing, the state lost some 14,000 of its 90,000 men who served. A black regiment from Michigan included enlistees from many states and also from the Canadian province of Canada West (now Ontario). The Republican Party became dominant after the war. In the 1890s many leaders, including Hazen Pingree, mayor of Detroit and subsequently governor of Michigan, implemented progressive legislation.

Meanwhile, the mining and forestry industries helped to jump-start Michigan's economy. Iron ore was extracted from three ranges in the Upper Peninsula-Marquette, Gogebic, and Menominee-while copper mining was centred in the Keweenaw Range, in the northernmost part of the Upper Peninsula. Lumbering of the vast pine forests was the mainstay of the state's economy during the late 1800s. The Saginaw Valley, in the east-central region of the Lower Peninsula, was the leading lumbering area between 1840 and 1860. By 1900, however, most of the pine in the Lower Peninsula was gone. Logging in the Upper Peninsula began to assume importance in the 1880s, and the virgin stands lasted into the early 20th century.

Michigan, c. 1900-70

Before 1900 a diverse base of agriculture, lumbering, mining, and manufacturing activities had propelled the state's economy; throughout much of the 20th century, however, the economy was dominated by the automotive industry. During World War I, industrial production at all levels was intensified, and Michigan became a buoy of the national economy. Conversely, in the decade following the Great Depression that began in 1929. unemployment and deflation were far above the national averages, largely because the state's industrial products were not among the necessities of life. In 1932 Michigan departed from the Republican fold, thereafter becoming one of the indeterminate "swing" states, while organized labour became a powerful political and economic force. In 1937 the United Automobile Workers became the bargaining agent for production workers at General Motors Corporation, and by the outbreak of World War II it was the dominant union in all automotive plants. During the war Detroit became a major producer of military (rather than commercial) vehicles and, as such, was known as the Arsenal of Democracy. After the war, industrial production continued at a peak to restock the country with new cars and other war-depleted consumer goods.

The postwar years were also a period of explosive growth in the suburbs and rapid expansion of the state's highway system. One of the ramifications of these developments, however, was a decline in population, industries, and services in the inner cities, beginning in the late 1950s. In response to this negative trend, the state undertook projects to revive urban areas, including the construction of Detroit's Renaissance Center, a high-rise riverfront hotel, retail, and business development; the centre remains a symbol of Michigan's dedication to making its cities attractive and livable.

Meanwhile, racial polarization in Michigan increased during the mid-20th century, with major riots erupting in Detroit, most notably in 1943 and 1967. Such incidents notwithstanding, Michigan emerged as a leader in the movement to provide equal opportunity for minorities, people with disabilities, and women. The 1963 Michigan constitution was the first in the country to provide for a Department of Civil Rights.

Michigan since the 1970s

Michigan has experienced significant economic fluctuations since the late 20th century. A severe recession in the late 1970s and early 1980s caused widespread unemployment, business failures, and cuts in state government services. The government, business, and education sectors subsequently pooled their efforts to attract new enterprises, broaden opportunities for young people, strengthen the work force, and promote the expanding tourism industry.

Especially with the development of high-technology industries and a revival of automobile manufacturing, the state experienced somewhat of an economic renaissance in the 1990s, and unemployment dropped to low levels. Tourism, manufacturing, agriculture, and services dominated the economy more evenly than in the past. By the early 21st century, however, Michigan's auto industry again was struggling, urban sprawl and the loss of prime farmland to suburban development were growing concerns, and the rate of unemployment was among the highest in the country. The state's uncertain economic climate was a factor in the growth of the militia movement in the 1990s and 2000s, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation closely monitored these groups, particularly in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Nevertheless, economic diversification and high-technology industries continued to be viewed as the long-term solution to the state's economic woes. The state increasingly encouraged the development of wind farms for power generation, and in 2008 the U.S. Department of Energy awarded a $550 million nuclear physics research project to Michigan State University.
Sidney Glazer Richard J. Hathaway Randall J. Schaetzl

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Michigan was anxious for statehood so that it might undertake a more ambitious program of internal improvements. The first constitution was enacted in 1835, but statehood was delayed until 1837 by the so-called Toledo War, a boundary dispute with Ohio.

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The Tigers are a Major League Baseball team based in Detroit, Michigan.

People have lived in the land now called Michigan for at least 12,000 years. Many centuries after those first inhabitants arrived, Native American tribes lived on the land, including the Kickapoo, Miami, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Menominee, and Fox and Sauk. Eleven Native American tribes still live in Michigan today.

French explorers reached the area around 1618. France controlled the land until the mid-1700s, when England defeated the country in the French and Indian War, which lasted between 1754 and 1763. (Many Native Americans fought with France against England.) In 1805, Michigan became a U.S. territory. Settlers began pouring in around 1825, once the newly built Erie Canal made traveling across the country much easier. Michigan joined the Union as a free state in 1837.

Just before 1900, automakers Ransom E. Olds (as in Oldsmobile) and Henry Ford built some of the first cars in Detroit. The city is still called "Motor City" because so many cars are made there.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Experts aren't sure, but Michigan might have been named after Lake Michigan, which got its name from a Native American word that roughly translates to "big lake."

Experts don't agree on why Michigan is called the Wolverine State ... especially since not many wolverines live there! One theory is that fur traders used to exchange animal pelts, including wolverines', in Michigan. Another idea involves an 1835 land skirmish with Ohio. At the time, people from Ohio called their Michigan neighbors "wolverines" as an insult.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Four of the Great Lakes share borders with Michigan: Superior, Huron, Michigan, and Erie. No wonder it's sometimes called the Great Lakes State! It's bordered by Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin in the south, and the Great Lakes and Canada in the east, north, and west. It's also the only U.S. state that's split into two big pieces: the Upper Peninsula in the north and the Lower Peninsula-known as "the mitten"-in the south. They're connected by the five-mile Mackinac Bridge.

The Upper Peninsula is forested with low hills. It includes the state's highest point, Mount Arvon-but even that's a relatively short 1,979 feet.

The Lower Peninsula is mostly flat with some hills in the north. It's also home to thousands of miles of shoreline, including Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, where 400-foot dunes give a clear view of Lake Michigan.

Over 40 percent of the state is covered in water-that's more than any other state! Michigan even has islands, including Isle Royale, a national park in the middle of Lake Superior.

Michigan is home to many types of animals-especially the widespread white-tailed deer (the state animal). Once wiped out by hunters, native elk and moose have made comebacks after herds were relocated from Wyoming and Canada, respectively.

Michigan is also home to 360 bird species, including the rare Kirtland's warbler. Raptors such as osprey, short-eared owls, and peregrine falcons live in Michigan as well, as do many water birds such as trumpeter swans, great blue herons, and piping plovers.

Red-bellied snakes, spiny soft-shell turtles, and five-lined skinks are a few of the reptiles that slink and creep through the state. Marbled salamanders, bullfrogs, and green frogs are among Michigan's amphibians.

With more than half the state covered in forests, Michigan is filled with white pine (the state tree), American mountain ash, boxelder, sugar maple, and red mulberry. Michigan rose, orange coneflower, evening primrose (check it out blooming at night!), and yellow monkey flower are some of the wildflowers that grow in the Wolverine State.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Michigan is known for fishing, thanks to its 3,288-mile coastline, the longest freshwater coastline in the United States. Forestry is another important industry, as 90 percent of the Upper Peninsula is covered in trees. The state also produces iron oxide pigments, which are used for making red, orange, yellow, and black pigment-often for makeup.

-Who was born in Michigan? Just singers Madonna, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder; tennis player Serena Williams; and pilot Charles Lindbergh!

-Motown Records was founded in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959 (the name came from a combination of "motor" and "town," since the city was a car manufacturing hub). The record company produced music by the Temptations, Diana Ross, the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, and many others. The studio where much of this music was recorded is now the Motown Museum and is open to visitors.

-Corn Flakes were "born" in Battle Creek in 1898. The Kellogg brothers were trying to make granola but accidentally created flakes instead!

-The Henry Ford Museum is filled with examples of American genius. Thomas Edison's laboratory, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, and even the bus that Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks rode are all on display.

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Get facts and photos about the 26th state.

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Kids learn facts and geography about the state of Michigan including symbols, flag, capital, bodies of water, industry, borders, population, fun facts, GDP, famous people, and major cities.

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The State of Michigan | Educational Facts for Kids

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This video is a light-hearted chronicle of how Michigan became a state. From an errant survey, to a "war" with Toledo, to Michigan's eventual admission by the U.S. Congress, our host covers the road to statehood in a fun and entertaining fashion.

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History of Michigan: From Native Americans to Statehood

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A brief history of Michigan from the time of Native Americans to Statehood

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Michigan for Kids | US States Learning Video