Detroit's Underground Creeks and Streams

**SWMAP** · July-31-09, 09:26 AM

Thank you for this reference from the Farmer book. How wonderful the old-time researchers were - and how wonderful the modern researchers of Detroit are!

**gnome** · July-31-09, 09:30 AM

No prob, ...The real interesting thing is that Silas Farmer took a 1890 Map of Detroit and laid it over a map his father[[?), John Farmer, made in 1830.

**RickBeall** · July-31-09, 09:58 AM

That link worked. Thank you for the amazing resource!

**RickBeall** · February-03-10, 01:45 PM

A sewer longing to be a creek. ;-)

**Carey** · February-03-10, 03:46 PM

Savoyard: Can you provide some more details about how you can see the old Savoyard Creek near Congress and Washington Blvd? Thanks.

**Savoyard** · February-03-10, 08:06 PM

My Dad worked for Detroit Edison for 23 years. In the mid-1990s, he got me a summer job working for DE [[they may have been in the process of becoming DTE). He knew of my interest in Detroit history and kept telling me about the covered Savoyard River beneath the Washington/Congress area. I told him that if he ever had an assignment in that area, I wanted to see it. It turns out they used the covered creek to run power lines between major buildings downtown. So one day he calls me and says he has a call to go down "to the creek". The entrance was basically a manhole cover somewhere near the intersection of Congress and Washington. I don't remember exactly where. We went down and entered a bricked-in area about 8 feet wide. The ceiling had a lot of power lines running through it [[at the top of the vault) and about 3 inches of water. No bad smellls, just a lot of humidity. I explored a bit with my Dad, and he showed me some areas that expanded out to about 10-15 feet wide, again with bricked walls and brick-vaulted ceilings. We moved to the area approximately where the Michigan Gas building is. That's an area that used to be the first cemetery for St. Anne's, which was just north of the One Griswolv building. We could see that the walls had collapsed, so didn't venture further. Wish I had taken pictures ...

**Carey** · February-04-10, 09:48 AM

Very interesting. Thanks.

**Detroitnerd** · February-04-10, 10:12 AM

Nice story, Savoyard! [[And all this time I just thought you were a Gilbert & Sullivan fan!)

**RickBeall** · February-04-10, 10:53 AM

Hey Savoyard, I love stories like that. Thanks.

**TreasureVault** · February-03-11, 06:26 PM

Hello historians.... KI lived on Carlbert Street,once just one block east of French Road and intersecting [[meeting) 6 Mile Road. The neighborhood was demolished due to the efforts of Lydia Wrona, a resident who, for safety reasons fought to have the City of Detroit and airport owners buy us out, so the new runway could be surveyed, researched, and ultimately constructed.

Our front door [[at 13751 Carlbert) faced a tool and die plant on 6 Mile, parallel to French Rd. We were one block north of Aero Mechanics training school. The family names such as Zeamis, Borton, Wrona, and Sandra Cronk or Kronk, were well known from Connor Road to Mt.Olivet Cemetery, and from Holy Name Parish and school? to VerHoven Chevrolet. The neighborhood grade school age kids [[Lynch School) would sneak onto the airport property, next to Aero, and play
In the WW II fighter planes awaiting diagnosis and/or repair. I would climb inside
with my neighbors 1 or 2 at a time and play with the controls. When the airport
police nabbed us because we were walking on the 'active' runways, we were let
go with just a warning because we cried so much !!!!
Don Wrona

**Carey** · February-03-11, 08:00 PM

Question for anyone: Is there one good reference available for the various streams that ran into Detroit? A map, a book, an article?

Savoyard: Where, exactly, is the entrance to the Savoyard River on Congress? How do you access the site? Tell us all you know about your namesake river....

**Mikeg** · February-03-11, 09:08 PM

Originally Posted by Carey

Question for anyone: Is there one good reference available for the various streams that ran into Detroit? A map, a book, an article?

Refer to Chapter II of Silas Farmer's 1884 book "The History of Detroit and Michigan". Chapter II starts on page 6 of the book [[page 61 of the downloadable PDF document) and is titled "The River, Islands, Wharves and docks, Streams and Mills". Streams and Mills begins on page 8 and page 9 features a map showing the routes of former streams and the old Detroit River line.