County note shelf
Oakland County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Oakland County. This shelf has 8 practical notes and 74 local stories.
82 notes
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- OutdoorsLyon Oaks saves 800 wet acres beside the regional trailLyon Oaks County Park protects 800 acres of wetlands within a 1,041-acre park, with six miles of natural trails and a connection to the Huron Valley Trail.
- OutdoorsThe Rouge is four rivers hiding under one nameThe Rouge River has four major branches and 127 river miles, tying together parks and neighborhoods across Oakland, Wayne, and Washtenaw counties.
- OutdoorsThe Clinton River starts as a web, not a lineMain, Middle, North, Stony, Paint, and Red Run branches connect Oakland and Macomb communities before the Clinton reaches Lake St. Clair.
- History and cultureEight Mile is more than Detroit's northern edgeBefore it became a cultural dividing line, Eight Mile was Michigan's survey baseline - the line that helped lay out townships, counties, and the mile-road grid.
- History and cultureCranbrook: a newspaperman's farm that became an art schoolA Bloomfield Hills farm bought in 1904 by Detroit News publisher George Booth grew into Cranbrook — a school, art academy, and science museum, all designed by Eliel Saarinen.
- History and cultureThe parks built on top of a freeway in Oak ParkI-696 runs below Oak Park under three large deck plazas that reconnect neighborhoods, including an Orthodox Jewish community where walking access to places of worship matters.
- History and cultureA cheese magnate's mansion, and the Michigan governor who grew up thereThe Governor Warner Mansion in downtown Farmington was the boyhood home of Fred Warner — orphan, cheese tycoon, three-term Michigan governor — and is now the city's history museum.
- Home and propertyA whole town planned by one woman in the 1920sLathrup Village grew out of 1,000 acres that Louise Lathrup Kelley bought in 1923 and laid out as her own planned community — masonry houses, attached garages, and a shuttle to the shops.
- OutdoorsA working farm and a raptor house inside the suburbs of TroyThe Lloyd A. Stage Nature Center keeps 100 acres of meadow, marsh, and forest — plus a barn of non-releasable hawks and owls — wild in the middle of one of metro Detroit's busiest suburbs.
- History and cultureAmerica's Polish seminary, on a Michigan military academy's old campusA campus founded in 1885 in Detroit to train Polish-American priests moved in 1909 into the buildings of a bankrupt military academy on Orchard Lake and grew into the Orchard Lake Schools.
- OutdoorsApple Island: the uninhabited island that named Orchard LakeA 35-acre island in the middle of Orchard Lake gave the lake its name; the Ottawa called it 'the place of the apples,' and today it's a school-owned nature sanctuary.
- History and cultureBattle Alley: the Holly street that earned its name in fistfightsA short brick street in downtown Holly was nicknamed Battle Alley after years of saloon brawls — and the 1891 hotel on its corner survived a temperance crusader's ax.
- History and cultureBerkley took its name from a one-room school and a farmer's roadBerkley is named for a schoolhouse and a road that ran through Elmer Cromie's farm; back when it was chosen, two tracks down Woodward carried a train and an interurban streetcar.
- History and cultureClarkston: half a square mile around a mill pondThe City of the Village of Clarkston covers half a square mile around a Clinton River mill pond, with a historic core shaped by sawmills, a gristmill, and a Ford village factory.
- History and cultureClawson is probably just 'Lawson' spelled wrongThe city of Clawson likely owes its name to a clerical slip — a settler named Lawson, an extra letter, and a post office that opened in 1880 under the misspelled version that stuck.
- OutdoorsDinosaur Hill: a leftover pile of basement dirt that became a Rochester nature preserveA 16-acre nature preserve tucked into a Rochester subdivision got its name from kids who thought a mound of excavated basement dirt looked like a sleeping dinosaur.
- OutdoorsHaven Hill: the woodland retreat Edsel Ford built to escape the family businessEdsel Ford spent the 1920s buying hilltops in Highland Township for a private retreat; today his Haven Hill estate is a state recreation area and a National Natural Landmark.
- History and cultureHow a blue-collar Ferndale became metro Detroit's gayborhoodAffirmations anchors West Nine Mile Road in Ferndale, where a longtime LGBTQ community helped pass a 2006 rights ordinance and elect Craig Covey mayor in 2007.
- History and cultureKeego Harbor is named after a fish — by way of a poemKeego Harbor borrowed its name from 'keego,' an Ojibwe word for fish that a Pontiac real-estate man lifted out of Longfellow's 'Song of Hiawatha' for the lakeside town he was platting.
- History and cultureMilford lit its streets in 1892, with a dynamo in an old gristmillMilford grew up around mills on the Huron River, and in 1892 it became one of Michigan's first towns with electric lights — powered by a dynamo bolted into a gristmill.
- OutdoorsMt. Holly: where metro Detroit learns to skiA township ski hill off Dixie Highway near Holly, opened in the mid-1950s, installed southeastern Michigan's first chairlift and still teaches generations of beginners on its 350-foot drop.
- History and cultureNorthville Downs: 80 years of harness racing under the lightsNorthville Downs opened in 1944 as Michigan's first track to race harness horses at night, ran for 80 years, and closed in 2024 as the state's last nighttime harness track.
- History and cultureOxford once called itself the Gravel Capital of the WorldA glacier left a thick vein of gravel under Oxford, and for decades the village mined and shipped it by the trainload — billing itself the Gravel Capital of the World.
- Money and taxesPontiac is one of the few Oakland County cities with its own income taxPontiac levies a city income tax — 1% on residents and 0.5% on nonresidents who work there — one of only about two dozen Michigan cities that tax income at all.
- OutdoorsPontiac Lake's mountain-bike trail is rated among the country's bestPontiac Lake State Recreation Area in White Lake Township packs 3,700 acres, the longest beach in southeast Michigan, and an 11-mile mountain-bike loop rated a Top 100 U.S. trail.
- History and culturePontiac's car museum, in the city that gave GM its wide-track swaggerA museum that opened in 2024 inside a former Pontiac school gathers the cars, carriages, and GMC trucks of a city that built vehicles for over a century — and named a street Wide Track.
- OutdoorsProud Lake: 3,000 acres of state land where the Huron River slows downProud Lake State Recreation Area spreads over 3,000 acres of Commerce Township, where the young Huron River widens into a chain of lakes laced with hiking trails and canoe water.
- History and cultureSylvan Lake: the little city named for a 'wooded shady lake'Sylvan Lake, one of Michigan's smallest cities by land area, takes its name from a lake an 1818 expedition first called Timber Lake for its fringe of tamaracks.
- History and cultureThe Auburn Hills tower with a window shaped like a car logoChrysler's Auburn Hills headquarters is one of the biggest office buildings in the country, crowned by a 249-foot tower with a giant window in the shape of the Pentastar logo.
- History and cultureThe car named Oakland — for the county it was built inBefore Pontiac, there was Oakland: a car company started in a Pontiac buggy factory in 1907 and named for Oakland County itself — until General Motors quietly erased the brand around 1931.
- History and cultureThe day green ooze leaked onto I-696 in Madison HeightsIn December 2019 a bright yellow-green sludge of hexavalent chromium seeped onto eastbound I-696 in Madison Heights from a shut-down plating shop, kicking off a years-long state and federal cleanup.
- History and cultureThe farm widow who gave Southfield its downtownBefore the glass towers, Southfield's center was a 19th-century crossroads called the Burgh — and the city's civic center exists because farmer Mary Thompson sold her land below market and willed away her farmhouse.
- OutdoorsThe golf course that paid for the zoo next doorRackham Golf Course in Huntington Woods was a 1924 gift from Horace and Mary Rackham, designed by Donald Ross — the same couple whose money helped build the Detroit Zoo across the road.
- History and cultureThe oldest house in Oakland County still stands in downtown BirminghamJohn W. Hunter built a frame house in Birmingham in 1822 — the oldest house in Oakland County, saved from demolition, moved, and now the centerpiece of the Birmingham Museum.
- History and cultureThe Palace of Auburn Hills: three banners, then a vacant fieldThe Palace of Auburn Hills opened in 1988, gave the Detroit Pistons three NBA titles, was imploded in 2020 — and General Motors now plans an electric-vehicle parts plant on the bare ground.
- History and cultureThe Royal Oak studio where the Spirit of Detroit was bornSculptor Marshall Fredericks worked from a studio at Woodward and Normandy in Royal Oak from 1945 to 1998, modeling the Spirit of Detroit and dozens of other public works there.
- OutdoorsThe West Bloomfield Trail: a railroad turned quiet woodsThe 6.8-mile West Bloomfield Trail follows an 1884 rail line — later an electric interurban — that once hauled freight and passengers from Pontiac toward Detroit before the rails were torn up.
- History and cultureThe Witch's Hat: South Lyon's train depot got its name from its roofA 1909 Grand Trunk depot in South Lyon, named for its pointed conical roof, was saved in 1976, rolled to a park, and now anchors a small historic village.
- OutdoorsThree rivers are born in Springfield TownshipThe Huron, Clinton, and Shiawassee rivers all rise within Springfield Township, whose swampy headwaters feed Indian Springs Metropark and drain to three different Great Lakes.
- History and cultureWalled Lake danced to the big bands, then burned on ChristmasFrom 1919 into the 1960s, the Casino dance pavilion on Walled Lake drew big-band crowds and an amusement park to its shore — until a Christmas Day fire ended the music.
- OutdoorsWaterford's nature center used to raise fish by the millionsFor nearly 60 years the state raised bass and trout at the Drayton Plains fish hatchery on the Clinton River; today the same land is a 138-acre Waterford nature preserve.
- History and cultureWhen Kmart ran a retail empire from Big Beaver Road in TroyThe dime-store company S. S. Kresge founded grew into Kmart and ran its headquarters from a complex on Big Beaver Road in Troy from 1972 until 2005, before the building was finally torn down.
- History and cultureWixom used to be called Sibley's CornersWixom started as a farm crossroads called Sibley's Corners; it took its current name from Willard Wixom, who gave land for the railroad that turned the corners into a town.
- OutdoorsEdsel Ford's country retreat is now a state park: Haven HillThe Highland Recreation Area in northwest Oakland County wraps around Haven Hill — Edsel Ford's former estate and a National Natural Landmark of rare Michigan forest.
- History and cultureFor 50 years, Wixom built Lincolns — then the line went quietFord's Wixom Assembly Plant turned out Lincolns and Thunderbirds from 1957 to 2007; the last Lincoln Town Car rolled off the line on May 31, 2007.
- History and cultureHazel Park Raceway: 69 years of horse racing, then an Amazon warehouseHazel Park Raceway ran horse races from 1949 until it closed in 2018, ending live racing in Oakland County; an Amazon center now stands on the site.
- History and cultureHolly's Battle Alley earned its rowdy name the hard wayBattle Alley in downtown Holly got its name after an 1885 circus brawl; temperance leader Carry Nation added to its reputation in 1908.
- OutdoorsHow a railroad's initials became the Polly Ann TrailThe Polly Ann Trail runs about 17 miles up northeast Oakland County on a former railroad bed, from Orion Township through Oxford and Leonard toward the county line.
- History and cultureThe Auburn Hills mall built as one long loop you can't get lost inGreat Lakes Crossing Outlets in Auburn Hills, open since 1998, is Michigan's largest indoor outlet center — built in a long loop with shops, restaurants, and attractions.
- History and cultureThe Frank Lloyd Wright house that floats over a Bloomfield Hills ravineThe Affleck House in Bloomfield Hills is a 1941 Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home, now owned by Lawrence Technological University and open for seasonal tours.
- History and cultureThe Royal Oak tower built so a cross couldn't be burnedThe Charity Crucifixion Tower at the National Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak was raised in 1931 in answer to a Klan cross burned at the parish.
- Cars and drivingWhere GM has tested its cars since 1924: the Milford Proving GroundGeneral Motors opened the Milford Proving Ground in 1924 as the auto industry's first dedicated test track — and it still runs today behind miles of fence in Milford.
- OutdoorsKensington Metropark: a swampy fishing hole turned into a 1,200-acre lakeKensington Metropark near Milford wraps 4,500 acres around Kent Lake — a wide lake made by damming the Huron over an old swimming hole — and is famous for chickadees that land on your hand.
- History and cultureOakland University grew from a 1,400-acre estate giftMatilda and Alfred Wilson gave Michigan State their estate and $2 million in 1957; Oakland University opened to undergraduates two years later.
- OutdoorsPaint Creek Trail: Michigan's first nonmotorized rail-trailThe Paint Creek Trail runs about 8.9 miles from Rochester to Lake Orion on an old rail line — the state's first non-motorized rail-to-trail, open since 1983.
- History and cultureLake Angelus: a whole city wrapped around one private lakeLake Angelus is one of Michigan's smallest cities, built around roughly 429 acres of water with resident-controlled access and unusually detailed boating rules.
- History and cultureA 16th-Century English Village Outside HollyEach fall, the Michigan Renaissance Festival turns a wooded site near Holly into Hollygrove, a make-believe Elizabethan village.
- History and culturePine Knob: the Clarkston amphitheater that lost its name for 20 yearsWhen this open-air theater opened in Clarkston in 1972, the venue says it was the biggest amphitheater in the country — and it has since topped Pollstar's amphitheater chart more than once.
- History and culturePontiac: a chief's name, a car's name, a comeback's namePontiac is named for the great Odawa chief, lent its name to millions of GM cars, hosted WrestleMania III's record crowd — and is rebuilding its downtown swagger.
- History and cultureSouthfield: Northland Center and the golden skylineNorthland opened in 1954 as an influential early regional shopping center. It began as an open-air complex, closed in 2015, and its site is being rebuilt for mixed use.