Detroit City Boundary Map . . . Date?

[SaintMe]

Can any one tell the approximate date this map is from? Also the street names of the city boundaries? There's a larger image at the link below, but I can't read the copyright. It doesn't appear that the Ambassador Bridge was built yet.



http://images.google.com/hosted/life...5cbcb6ce2c344d

[DetroitPlanner]

No Michigan Central or Roosevelt Park either.

[Magnatomicflux]

Looks like it says "copyright 1906" in the top right corner.

[old guy]

I believe the copyright date is 1906, or possibly 1904.

[Gistok]

At that time Detroit was mostly within the Grand Boulevard perimeter. Since Detroit's population went from 293,000 in 1900 to 990,000 in 1910.... one could guess at maybe circa 500,000 at the time this map was produced [[if the date is 1904).

[Jimaz]

The copyright date looks like 1906 to me. Typing Detroit map 1906 into Google images finds similar images.

[SaintMe]

I thought it looked like 1906 too. The streets of Indian Village aren't listed on here either, and I would have thought that area had been planned earlier since some of the homes are older than 1906.

[Magnatomicflux]

And I think we're looking at Livernois on the west, up to McGraw, east to Grand Blvd, NE to W Grand Blvd to 14 or 15th, east to Hamilton, up Hamilton to Webb, over to Goodwin or Cameron, down to basically Leicester and Oakland then over to....Holbrook and St. Aubin, down to Milwaukee Junction....then you can pretty much draw a line thru the GM plant to Shoemaker and Hurlbut....then stright down to the river.



If that makes sense! I think it's pretty much right.

HA! Look at Windsor LOL! We could put it in Belle Isle twice!

[johnkuhnphoto]

nice find !

[MikeM]

As early as 1891, as late as 1906. Those were the city boudaries from 1891 through 1905. The area west of Artillery was annexed in 1906 and the area east of Bewick was annexed in 1907.

[Steve]

What is the northernmost point on that map?

[Danny]

Outside the Detroit city boundry was Hamtramck TWP, Springwells TWP and Greenfield TWP. Highland Park was just started to be a Scottish settlement until Henry Ford contribute to build is " Crystal Palace" called the Highland Park Assembly Plant.

By 1929 Detroit annexed Del-Rey, parts of Dearborn TWP Redford TWP, Grosse Pointe TWP, Detroit annexed all of Greenfield TWP and Hamtramck TWP.

Henry Ford theatened the people of Dearborn and Dearbornville [[ On Dix and Vernor Rd.) that he would propose to annex the area to Detroit if he didn't build his River Rouge Complex. The people of Dearborn and Dearbornville give in to his plans and his super plant was built.

Detroit tried to annex what's left the River Rouge area of Dearborn TWP, but didn't work. If Detroit didn't annexed all of Dearborn TWP, Then a new lower Southwest side of Detroit would have been developed with fancier neighborhoods and a pecular possibly white, Arab and Hispanic community. Blacks would be kept out due to restrictive covenants and higher real estate income requirements. The city population would have been over 2.5 million by 1940 and 3.2 million by 1950.

[Scottathew]

That map is fantastic, I love stuff like that.

[EastsideAl]

What is the northernmost point on that map?

It's the current border with Highland Park, Woodland on the east side of Woodward, and Webb on the west side.

Below is a map of annexations to the City of Detroit over the years, which has been posted on this forum previously. This map contains a few minor errors, but, as you can see, there was a kind of a 'break' in annexations from 1891 to 1906. On the 1906 Detroit map that's the subject of this thread the city's west side still ends at Livernois [[then known as Artillery St. south of Dix - which later became Vernor Hwy. there), so it's drawn before the annexation of much of Springwells Township shown on the map below as having taken place in that year.

[EastsideAl]

I thought it looked like 1906 too. The streets of Indian Village aren't listed on here either, and I would have thought that area had been planned earlier since some of the homes are older than 1906.

Although some early Indian Village homes were built in the late 1890s and early 1900s, the streets were still privately owned by the developer, The Cook Farm Company, and don't show on most city maps until a little after this period. They owned the land all the way north to Harper [[the northern city line shown here), which is why all that space is blank, but only developed the "first class residential district" of Indian Village as far north as Mack. Because of the high land cost and high building standards compared to the surrounding area, and the growing allure of Grosse Pointe to the truly wealthy, much of the northern part of Indian Village [[from Kercheval to Mack) remained unbuilt until the 1920s, and there are several vacant lots still there today that were just never used.

Although there are some small frame houses still standing on the blocks north of Jefferson from the 1890s and even earlier, a lot of the east side area east of Grand Blvd. shown on this map was actually still undeveloped at this time. If you look at the map carefully you'll see that a lot of the streets don't go through and have different names than the ones they have today. A lot of these 'streets' were really little more than developers' proposals in 1906, but that would all change completely during the following few years, and by the late 1920s urban development reached out to Alter Rd. and beyond.

[Danny]

I wish Detroit should annexed Lincoln Park, River Rouge, Ecorse, All the 5 Grosse Pointes, Highland Park, Hamtramck, All of Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, Redford TWP, Livonia, Westland, Garden City, Inkster, Wayne, Taylor, Southgate, Wyandotte, Melvindale, Allen Park, Southgate and Harper Woods. But the " STUPID" Charter Township act of 1948 prevent cities to annex cities. However the new State Boundry Commissions 1978 Township Charter Act grant immunity for townships if they have their own Water and Sewage disposals, police and fire depts and new paved roads and healthy budget deficit. If the township loses these ONE of those requirements then, its loses the SBC's Charter township immunity causing that certain area to be annexed to a city.


Royal Oak TWP. had lost SBC's immunity due to bad budget balances, thus being annex parts of the area to Oak Park. Years from now R.O.T. may be annexed to either Ferndale, Detroit or Oak Park.

Northville TWP. is NOT a charter township so any time soon Livonia, Farmington Hills, Village of Plymouth can annex bits and pieces of the area. Livonia answered to developers' request to have the area of 7 Mile and Haggerty to be annexed to the city, but it cause property taxes to go up. So the people of Livonia vote HELL NO and Northville TWP is saved for the moment.

Redford TWP. is chartered but it soon loses SBC's required immunity. They get their water from Detroit instead from a tapped well. As long they pay Detroit's very high water rates, they stay immune from city annexation.

[laphoque]

As long they pay Detroit's very high water rates, they stay immune from city annexation.

Detroit has some of the lowest water rates in the country [[the eighth lowest according to DWSD's website). Last I saw the city pays for about 40% of the water department's costs despite being only about 25% of the population who uses the water. The burbs are getting a deal.

[EastsideAl]

Detroit has some of the lowest water rates in the country [[the eighth lowest according to DWSD's website). Last I saw the city pays for about 40% of the water department's costs despite being only about 25% of the population who uses the water. The burbs are getting a deal.

This really deserves another thread. But, yes, they won't realize that until they take over the system, and then can start overcharging us, instead of what they erroneously claim goes the other way around. Frankly, I think we should tell them to source their own damn water and build their own damn system if they don't like the service. And let's see how the "don't tax me, I don't want to pay for anything" suburban crowd likes the cost of that! But then I also think a lot of this comes about not really because of cost, but because a lot of folks out there in the 'burbs don't want their water controlled by those scary dark people they moved out into the former farmland to avoid.