This marks the place where 34 physicians from Harper Hospital founded the American Academy of Pediatrics on June 24, 1930.
This marks the birthplace of James McGinnis on July 4, 1847. He joined a circus at age 14, adopted the name Bailey and eventually joined with Phineas T. Barnum in creating the nation's most famous circus.
At this site in July, 1763, Chief Pontiac led a surprise attack to drive the British from Detroit killed commander Captain James Dalyell about 60 of his soldiers. This British eventually suppressed Chief Pontiac's uprising.
The first Exchange Club in the United States was founded in Detroit in 1911.
This marks the birthplace of Ralph Bunche, the Under Secretary General of the United Nations for 16 years who successfully mediated the 1948 war between Israel and their Arab neighbors. He was the first African American to win the Noble Peace Prize.
This is where the Catholepistemiad founded by the Father Gabriel Richard was located. This state-supported educational institution eventually became the University of Michigan and moved to Ann Arbor in 1837.
The Great Sauk Trail was an important Indian trial leading from Detroit toward Chicago and the Midwest. While representing Michigan he Congress in the early 1820s, Father Gabriel Richard successfully sought federal funds to plank this road - large oaks placed over compacted dirt.
The Evangelismos Greek Orthodox Church was founded here in 1910 and became the center of the city's Hellenic community.
George DeBaptiste was one of the leaders of Detroit's black community in the 1850s. He was involved with the Underground Railroad. He had been employed in Washington as William Henry Harrison's personal valet. He organized Michigan's Colored Regiment during the Civil War.
Detroit began building a magnificent city hall in 1860 and dedicated the building 11 years later. It was one of the nation's most decorated and appealing municipal building but, after much controversy, was razed in 1961. The preservationist movement was not powerful enough to keep this building.
In 1891, the first college of law was founded on this site. It the 1980s, it became affiliated with Michigan State University and moved to East Lansing.
In 1868, five physicians who had ministered to the injured in the Civil War founded the city's first medical school. In 1933, it became affiliated with Wayne State College.
The Plaindealer was the city's first successful African American newspaper founded in 1883 with Robert Pelham as managing editor. It ceased publication in 1894.
The first public school in Detroit opened in 1843 using space over a grocery store that no longer exists.
On March 12, 1859, Frederick Douglas and John Brown met in the home of William Webb to discuss the termination of slavery in the United States. Brown thought that a bloody insurrection would be needed and worked to that end. Frederick Douglas, the leading black spokesman of the pre-Civil War era, disagreed and refused to join Brown in the raid on Harper's Ferry that helped propel the nation toward the Civil War.
This commemorates the modest development of the village of Detroit during the era from Cadillac's arrival in 1701 until the British occupation. Perhaps the most obvious reminder of the French settlement is the name of the city and the names of many major streets.
William Ferguson was the first African American to serve in the state legislature, having been elected in 1893. He was a printer, a real estate broker and lawyer who won a then-famous suit upholding Michigan's Reconstruction era laws prohibiting Jim Crow in public places. Despite the 1890 legal ruling, Jim Crow was the rule in many Detroit restaurants until after World War II.
Seymour Finney was a tailor and innkeeper who owned Finney's Hotel. He erected a barn behind his hotel and, in the 1850s, used it as a hiding place for fugitive slaves who then escaped to freedom in Canada under the cover of darkness. Thus he ran a well-know station on the Underground Railroad.
Detroit's first public library was erected here in 1877—an impressive five story arcaded building with ornamental iron columns.
Near this site, a group of German-Jewish immigrants met at the home of Isaac and Sarah Cozens and formed the Beth El Society, and conducted the first Jewish religious service in Detroit.
Early in the Civil War, northern African Americans volunteered for military service but were rejected. Later, President Lincoln changed this policy but mandated Jim Crow for the northern Army. The 102nd U. S. Colored Troops was organized here in February, 1864 as Michigan's unit. About 900 men departed in March of that year and saw service in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
By 1909, concrete was used in the construction of massive industrial building but its first used to pave a highway in this section of Woodward. It was a successful innovation benefiting the vehicle industry.
On July 11, 1796, the first US infantry men, led by Colonel John Hamtramk, came ashore at this point to take possession of Detroit from the British.
In a small one-story brick structure at this location, Henry Ford built his first motor vehicle in 1892.
On March 7, 1932 - in the midst of the Depression and just before the inauguration of President Roosevelt, the Michigan Communist Party organized a march of hungry workers. When they turned onto Miller Road and approached the Ford plant, they were fired upon and five were killed.
This marks the location where 11 of Detroit business leaders met with Henry Ford and formed the Ford Motor Company on June 16, 1903.
The first French settlement was located on this site in July, 1701. A military fort was established but, as a result of the French and Indian War, the French surrendered to the British in 1760.
Charles Brady King designed and built the first gasoline powered automobile to operate on the streets of Detroit at this location. His first drive was on March 6, 1896.
The Kiwanis International Service organization was founded here on January 21, 1815.
Father Martin Kundig was born in Switzerland, educated as a priest in Rome and came to work in Detroit in 1833. He was a leader in trying to minimize the cholera epidemic of that time and became Wayne County's first superintendent of the poor. He served as a regent of the University of Michigan.
This marks the home of William Lambert, a black leader who was born in New Jersey in 1817 but came to Detroit as a young man where he helped lead the state's anti-slavery movement. He also helped organized the Underground Railroad in Detroit and was a successful businessman.
On July 24, 1701 Cadillac and his convoy planted the flag of France on the banks of the river near the intersection of West Jefferson and Shelby thereby founding the city
After founding the city, Cadillac and French ministered divided the land northeast of Fort Ponchatrain into long "ribbon" farms.
Elijah McCoy was born in Canada to fugitive slaves and educated as a mechanical engineer in Scotland. He returned to the US and worked for the Michigan Central Railroad where he patented the first automatic lubrication system for locomotive engineers thereby improving their efficiency and safety. His invention gave rise to the phrase "The real McCoy."
About 100 physicians from across Michigan met her on June 5, 1866 for establish the Michigan State Medical Society.
Michigan's first territorial capital building was begun here in 1823 and completed in 1828. The building burned in 1896.
The first meeting of the governing officials of Michigan territory met on this site at Richard Smyth's Tavern in 1805 shortly before the village was destroyed by fire.
The first theater performance in Michigan was given at this site in 1819.
In 1901, Olds produced 425 curved dashed Oldsmobile in his East Jefferson factory making his a mass producer of cars. Apparently all of them were test driven on Belle Isle.
The first major league baseball game in Detroit was played here on May 2, 1881. The baseball park was home to a championship team in 1887.
The Antoine Beaubien family, in 1851, encouraged five nuns of the Religious of the Sacred Heart to migrate from France to Detroit to establish a school on this site.
This commemorates the Spring Hill site where Father Gabriel Richard established his first school and then used his printing press to publish the first newspaper and book in Michigan in 1809.
Fannie Richards was the city's first African American schoolteacher. She opened a private school for blacks in 1863 and then, in 1865, was appointed to teach in the city's Jim Crow schools. She helped file suit in 1869 to challenge racial segregation in the city's school, a plea the state Supreme Court upheld.
In 1909, Joseph Hudson funded the Douglass Institute to provide social activities to the city's African American youth. This evolved into the St. Antoine (or colored) branch of the YMCA and a building was constructed in 1924.
On April 27, 1919, 39 people met to organize the first African American Presbyterian Church in Detroit. The church was razed in the urban renewal efforts of the 1960s.
St. Philip's was founded in 1934 as the first Lutheran church in Michigan to serve African-Americans. Subsequently three other black Lutheran churches were founded in Detroit.
In 1887, Captain Fink was sent by British officers of the Salvation Army to found a mission in Detroit. By 1902, Detroit became the headquarters for the Salvation Army in Michigan and Indiana.
In 1930, Detroit native Robert Scherer invented a machine to produce soft gelatin capsules for medicines. He developed a firm to produce the required machines.
At this location on February 26, 1906, spectators watched the first Shrine Circus. In subsequent decades, Shrine Circuses across the nation raised funds for charities.
The city's first telephone was installed at this site in September, 1877 just 18 month after Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone.
Straker, an African American born in Barbados, educated in the law at Howard University in Washington and moved to Detroit late in the 19th century where he became one of the city's early civil rights lawyers.
American troops recaptured Detroit on September 29, 1813 but during that winter, American forces in Ohio could not supply them. In December, 1813, a cholera-like disease broke out and upward of 700 of the 1300 American troops in Detroit died.