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I recently acquired a street map of Detroit from the early 60s or thereabouts. The Detroit-Windsor tunnel is shown on the map as having the name "Fleetway Tunnel." I've never heard that name used before, nor has anyone I asked. It's always been the "Detroit-Windsor Tunnel" in any news coverage I've seen, and in conversation it's always just been "the tunnel." So, group, what's the story on the name "Fleetway?" An official business name? A colloquialism that faded away with time?
I have never heard that name for the tunnel before either, but a quick Google search brought this link up. You might have to go to the Windsor Public Library to get a concrete answer.
http://projects.windsorpubliclibrary...ang=en&story=3
Yeah I found that shortly after I posted here [[not sure why I didn't consult google first). Found some indication in other results that "Fleetway Tunnel" was indeed the name of the tunnel when it opened. Who knew?Quote:
Originally Posted by Honky Tonk
Interesting. I've never heard it called anything but the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, but I can find the name "Fleetway" online on several old postcards, and here it is in a WPA guide to Michigan that appears to have originally been published around 1941.
https://books.google.com/books?id=cW...etroit&f=false
I wonder when that name fell out of use? Perhaps, like the Douglas A. MacArthur Bridge [[ummm... Belle Isle Bridge to you), the name was never really in regular use at all. It sounds like a commercial name meant to convey that the tunnel is somehow faster, than the bridge, I suppose. I know the tunnel was a big financial failure for many years during the depression, because traffic declined and most of the traffic there was went over the bridge.
Everyone I know has simply called it the tunnel. My late Dad watched as it was built. One of his friends called it "the tube".