The Detroit Historical Museum
5401 Woodward Avenue at West Kirby in Detroit’s Cultural Center
Detroit barrister and historian, Clarence M. Burton, collected papers and documents pertinent to the city’s long history. In 1914, he donated his assembly of documents to the Detroit Public Library and then began to foster ideas for an historical museum. In 1921, he joined with 19 other local individuals interested in the city’s history to form the Detroit Historical Society. The organization developed slowly, but in 1927 they rented office space in what was then known as the Barlum Tower on Cadillac Square and is now known as the Cadillac Towers, a building that in the early 21st century was largely if not entirely rented by the City of Detroit. A small Detroit historical museum was opened on the 23rd floor of the Barlum Towers in 1928.
The Depression years of the 1930s were terrible ones for fundraising in the Motor City, but the Detroit Historical Society stayed alive. In 1942, George Stark, a journalist for the Detroit News, became president of the Detroit Historical Society. By 1945 he and his collaborators had raised one-quarter million dollars for the society. Shortly thereafter, the Detroit Historical Society agreed to turn over their collection of documents and their funds to the City of Detroit if the city would build and maintain an historical museum. A referendum was placed on the ballot in 1945 and the city’s residents ratified the building of such a museum.
The city began to construct the impressive museum that you see at Woodward and West Kirby in the city’s Cultural Center. It was dedicated on July 24, 1951—the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac and his crew of about 200 at what is now the foot of Woodward.
The most widely-known and appreciated exhibit in the Detroit Historical Museum is in the basement—a carefully and faithfully reconstructed portrayal of the streets of Detroit in the late Nineteenth Century. In 1949, the Department of Defense began the twenty-year process of transfering the federal property of Historic Fort Wayne over to the city of Detroit. The Detroit Historical Museum has more or less supervised Historic Fort Wayne, awaiting—for more than five decades—a decision about what will become of this fantastic and beautiful site along the Detroit River. The Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle opened in 1949 and became affiliated with the Detroit Historical Museum in the early 1960s.
In 2003, Detroit Historical Museum officials announced that they would initiate a fund raising campaign to raise $70 million for the construction of an 100,000-square-foot building adjoining the current museum. The opening of this impressive new structure was targeted for 2005. There has been little recent news of this major addition, and it does not appear on the current website of the Detroit Historical Museum, even in the fund raising section.
The Detroit Historical Museum is one of the few places in this country where you will find the British, the French and the USA flags flying every day side by side. These flags represent the three western nations whose flags have flown over forts in Detroit. Please look closely at the blue French flag with the golden fleur-de-lis. This in not the red-blue and white French flag that flows from the Revolution, but rather the French Flag of 1701 when Antoine Cadillac founded the city of Detroit. I suspect that you will not find this flag flying in France, but it is put up and taken down every day in Detroit.
City of Detroit Local Historic District; Not
listed
State of Michigan Registry of Historic Sites: Not listed
National Registry of Historic Sites: Not listed
Use in 2004: Historical Museum
Website: www.detroithistorical.org
Photo: Ran Farley; January, 2004