There were several big institutions around Northville. What is now Maybury State Park was the Maybury TB sanitarium for children. Years ago my students did a video interview with the last director, who still lived nearby. The children's mental hospital was at Sheldon and Six Mile. That was the location of the "Northville tunnels" that teens would enter for a thrill. Those were demolished over 20 years ago, I think. [[Those two locations are the places shown on the maps posted above.) The Detroit House of Corrections [[DeHoCo) was located east of that on Six Mile, basically across from the current Northville HS. That was a huge prison farm that was probably a square mile or so in size. Northville State Hospital is still standing [[at least the last time I drove by) on Seven Mile in Northville Twp., west of Haggarty Rd. That is the location that caused a big political fight when a developer moved some people onto the site in mobile homes to try to get the zoning changed and to transfer the land to Livonia. Later on there was a prison on Sheldon, and a smaller special education center on Haggarty. Lots of the rumors and stories about those places got blended together over the years.
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