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Wayne County Porch Notes

Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Wayne County. This shelf has 13 practical notes and 101 local stories.

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History and cultureCanton kept the Chinese name its neighbors gave upMichigan's 1830s fascination with China produced Canton, Nankin, and Peking townships; Canton is the one that still uses its original name.
History and cultureCricket has a home-field advantage in CantonCanton maintains cricket fields at Heritage Park and the Canton Sports Center, with drop-in play, leagues, tournaments, and a youth program.
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.
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 cultureA Hindu mandir anchors Canton's global sideThe BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir on Canton Center Road is a Hindu place of worship, cultural learning, festivals, and community service.
History and cultureWayne builds the Bronco and RangerFord's Wayne complex dates to 1952, has been rebuilt for several generations of vehicles, and now produces the Bronco and Ranger.
Money and taxesDetroit income tax: rates, filing, and remote workDetroit residents pay 2.4% and nonresidents pay 1.2% on income earned in the city. Michigan Treasury processes the return, but it is still a separate Detroit city return.
Money and taxesHamtramck Taxes Its Own Income, Wrapped Inside DetroitHamtramck is an enclave surrounded by Detroit, yet it runs its own 1% income tax; a state credit keeps residents who work in Detroit from paying twice.
History and cultureFair Lane: the Dearborn estate Henry Ford lit with his own riverHenry and Clara Ford's Fair Lane estate ran on its own hydroelectric powerhouse — its cornerstone laid by Thomas Edison — and powered part of Dearborn besides.
Money and taxesHighland Park's 2% city income tax — and why it's only a handful of Michigan citiesHighland Park levies its own city income tax on top of state and federal: 2% on residents and 1% on nonresidents who work there — one of about two dozen Michigan cities that do.
History and cultureCouncil Point: the Lincoln Park riverbank where Pontiac planned a warAt Council Point Park on the Ecorse River, Ottawa war leader Pontiac gathered tribes in April 1763 to plan the attack that became a six-month siege of British Fort Detroit.
History and cultureThe Heidelberg Project: a Detroit street turned into a polka-dotted artworkSince 1986, artist Tyree Guyton has turned vacant houses and lots on Detroit's Heidelberg Street into a sprawling outdoor artwork of polka dots, salvaged objects, and painted numbers.
History and cultureAllen Park: where the Detroit Lions actually workThe Detroit Lions' practice fields and headquarters have sat in Allen Park since 2002 — a city named for lumberman Lewis Allen, not the team that now calls it home.
OutdoorsDearborn Heights has a 1920s Donald Ross golf course it bought to saveWarren Valley in Dearborn Heights is a Donald Ross-designed golf course from the 1920s along the Middle Rouge that the city bought from Wayne County in 2018 to keep it from becoming subdivisions.
Home and propertyGarden City: a suburb laid out so every family could grow its own foodGarden City was platted in the 1920s on the English garden-city idea — home lots sized near an acre so each household could raise fruit and vegetables to feed itself.
Cars and drivingGrosse Ile's two bridges: pay on the north end, free on the southThe island of Grosse Ile reaches the mainland by two very different spans — a private toll swing bridge from 1913 and a free former railroad bridge the county opened in 1931.
History and cultureHamtramck Disneyland: one retired autoworker's two garages of joyIn a Hamtramck alley, retired GM worker Dmytro Szylak spent years turning two garages into a towering folk-art carnival of pinwheels, flags, Elvis, and toy soldiers.
History and cultureInkster's name came off a red sawmill — and its post office was once 'Moulin Rouge'The city of Inkster takes its name from Robert Inkster, a Shetland-born millman whose steam-powered red sawmill ran the settlement in the 1860s — once postmarked Moulin Rouge.
OutdoorsMaybury State Park: the woods that were once a city for the sickMaybury State Park near Northville was built on the grounds of Detroit's old tuberculosis sanatorium — a self-sufficient hospital town of some 40 buildings that ran from 1921 until 1969.
History and cultureMcLouth Steel: the Trenton mill that cast steel the new wayMcLouth Steel's Trenton plant was the first in North America to cast all its steel by the continuous-casting method, ran from 1948 until 1995, and once supplied 40 percent of the city's tax base.
History and cultureMelvindale: a town built so Ford's Rouge workers could walk homeMelvindale began in the 1920s as Oakwood Heights, a subdivision laid out to house workers at Ford's giant Rouge plant, and it took its name from one of its developers, Melvin Wilkinson.
OutdoorsMount Trashmore: the Riverview hill where people skied on the dumpRiverview built a public ski hill on top of its own municipal landfill — locals called it Mount Trashmore — and the buried garbage now feeds a renewable-gas plant.
History and cultureNorthville: the 'north village' that finally broke away from PlymouthNorthville got its plain name from being the north end of Plymouth Township, and after decades of sharing a government it voted to split off and form its own township in 1898.
History and culturePlymouth's single-screen movie house opened three days before Pearl HarborThe Penn Theatre in downtown Plymouth opened in December 1941, still runs as a 402-seat single-screen cinema, and is owned and operated today by a community nonprofit.
History and cultureRosedale Gardens: the 1920s neighborhood that came before Livonia was a cityRosedale Gardens, platted in the 1920s with deed restrictions and a village feel, was the first real suburb of farm-country Livonia Township and is now a National Register historic district.
History and cultureSouthgate: the city that took three tries to be bornSouthgate broke off from the old Township of Ecorse and incorporated as a city in 1958, after a years-long fight of petitions, a referendum, and a failed first charter.
History and cultureTaylor was named for a war hero who'd never set foot in itTaylor Township was organized in 1847 and named for Zachary Taylor, then a celebrated Mexican-American War general and soon the 12th U.S. president — not for any local family.
History and cultureThe Grosse Ile lighthouse the township bought for $350The current wooden front-range tower was lit in 1906, went dark in 1963, and survives under local stewardship.
History and cultureThe Old Redford movie palace built to look like a Japanese gardenDetroit's 1928 Redford Theatre was decorated as a Japanese garden, still plays its original Barton pipe organ, and has been run since 1977 by an all-volunteer organ society.
History and cultureThe Wilson Barn: Livonia's last reminder it was once dairy countryThe Wilson Barn in Livonia is a rebuilt 1919 bank barn from the Ira Wilson dairy farm, run on land the family had owned since 1847 and grown into a leading creamery.
History and cultureTrenton: named for the rock that became Arm & Hammer baking sodaTrenton took its name from Trenton limestone quarried along the Detroit River, and one local quarry's stone was cooked into baking soda sold under a name still in every kitchen — Arm & Hammer.
Money and taxesWyandotte makes its own electricity — and has since the 1890sWyandotte runs its own electric, water, and cable utilities, a setup that goes back to an 1892 vote and makes the power bill a city department instead of DTE.
History and cultureWyandotte: the salt under the city that built a chemical giantA glass tycoon found a deep bed of pure salt under Wyandotte in 1890 and built the Michigan Alkali Company on it — the chemical works that grew into the city's BASF plant a century later.
OutdoorsBelleville Lake: the reservoir that drowned a village in 1925Belleville Lake in Van Buren Township is not natural — it formed in 1925 when a dam on the Huron River backed up the water, flooding the old village of Rawsonville.
History and cultureDetroit's Historic Fort Wayne: a star fort that never fired in battleHistoric Fort Wayne, a five-pointed star fort on the Detroit River, was built in the 1840s to guard against a British attack that never came, and still stands today.
History and cultureFlat Rock: where Henry Ford dammed the Huron to light Model T headlampsHenry Ford built a dam on the Huron River at Flat Rock in the 1920s to power a lamp factory that made headlights for his cars. The dam still stands, now with a fish ladder.
History and cultureGrosse Ile's naval air station trained American and British aviatorsThe island's reserve aviation base was dedicated in 1929, became a Naval Air Station in 1942, and later became today's municipal airport.
History and cultureHamtramck: a city inside Detroit that keeps reinventing itselfHamtramck is a two-square-mile city surrounded by Detroit on nearly every side. Once a center of Polish-American life, in 2015 it elected the first Muslim-majority city council in the United States.
History and cultureNorthville's Mill Race Village: a 19th-century town gathered onto one greenMill Race Historical Village in Northville gathers 19th-century Michigan buildings — a church, a one-room school, a general store — on land once home to a grist mill.
History and culturePlymouth: the windmill town that became the home of the Daisy BB gunThe Daisy BB gun started in Plymouth, Michigan, where a struggling windmill company began giving away air rifles in 1888 — and soon dropped windmills to make guns.
History and cultureRiver Rouge's Zug Island and the mystery hum that crossed the borderZug Island, a steelmaking site in River Rouge, was traced as the likely source of the 'Windsor Hum' — a low rumble that rattled windows across the river in Canada for years.
History and cultureRomulus: the township that grew Michigan's busiest airportDetroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport sits in Romulus. It began as a one-square-mile county field dedicated in 1930 and is now by far Michigan's busiest airport.
OutdoorsTrenton's Elizabeth Park: the oldest park in the Wayne County systemElizabeth Park in Trenton, a 162-acre island park donated to Wayne County in 1919, is the oldest unit of the Wayne County park system.
History and cultureWyandotte: where America first made steel by the Bessemer methodThe Eureka Iron Works in Wyandotte poured the first commercial Bessemer steel in the United States in 1864, and rolled the country's first Bessemer steel rails in 1865.
History and cultureEcorse: a Downriver town named for birch barkEcorse takes its name from the Ecorse River. A 1902 federal place-name guide says the French name means tree bark and ties it to birch and other bark found along the banks.
History and culturePlymouth's Big Winter Thaw That Never Melts the CrowdsEach winter, downtown Plymouth turns into an open-air gallery of glittering ice carvings, and big crowds bundle up to see them.
History and cultureCherry Hill: the 1825 crossroads Canton planned aroundCherry Hill began as a farm-and-travel crossroads in 1825. Canton later used a historic district and design rules to carry its old center into a fast-growing township.
History and cultureGreenmead: the 1820s farm Livonia keptLivonia preserved its pioneer roots at Greenmead — a 95-acre 1820s homestead and historical village hosting markets, festivals, and Michigan's oldest barns.
History and cultureTaylor: home of the 2021 Little League World Series championsTaylor North won the 2021 Little League World Series — Michigan's first title since 1959 — and the city's 200-acre Heritage Park is where that baseball culture lives.
History and cultureThe city that named itself after its mallNankin Township voters incorporated as Westland in 1966, taking the shopping center's name after Livonia had tried to annex the mall area.
Rules and licensesOwn a home in a Detroit historic district? Exterior changes need approvalDetroit local historic districts require Historic District Commission approval for many exterior changes before permits.
History and culture'Midnight' — Detroit's Secret Code Name on the Road to FreedomOn the Underground Railroad, Detroit was code-named 'Midnight' — the last dark stop before the 'Dawn' of freedom across the river in Canada.
History and cultureA Factory Worker Turned Detroit's Hastings Street Into a #1 RecordBluesman John Lee Hooker came to Detroit for factory work, played the Hastings Street clubs at night, and turned his sound into the 1949 #1 hit 'Boogie Chillen'.
History and cultureA Whole Block of Detroit Is a Polka-Dotted Outdoor Art MuseumDetroit's Heidelberg Project turned a blighted east-side street into a world-famous outdoor art environment of polka dots and salvaged objects.
History and cultureBarry Sanders: The Most Exciting Lion of AllFor ten seasons the most electrifying runner in football played in Detroit — then walked away, near his peak, just shy of the all-time record.
History and cultureBelle Isle: Detroit's 985-acre island parkBelle Isle puts an aquarium, conservatory, beach, trails, and Detroit-and-Windsor views on a 985-acre island in the Detroit River.
History and cultureBetter Made: Detroit's Last Chip StandingThe last of Detroit's twenty-plus hometown chip makers, still frying on Gratiot Avenue since 1930.
History and cultureDetroit's 'Red Dwarf' — the Goblin Blamed for 300 Years of Bad LuckDetroit's Nain Rouge — a 'red dwarf' said to appear before disaster since Cadillac's day — is folklore, and now has its own springtime parade.
History and cultureDetroit's Grand Train Station Came Back From the DeadDetroit's grand 1913 train station sat abandoned for 30 years as a symbol of the city's decline — until Ford spent roughly $950 million restoring it, reopening in June 2024.
History and cultureDetroit's Pewabic Pottery still works in its 1907 studioFounded by Mary Chase Perry and Horace Caulkins, Pewabic became known for iridescent glazes and architectural tile seen across Detroit and the country.