100 Fun Facts About Detroit

Which French explorer founded Detroit in 1701 by building Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit?

Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Detroit in 1701 by building Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit; the Cadillac car brand, created in 1902, took his name and his coat of arms as its logo.

The name Detroit comes from a French word meaning what?

'Strait' is the meaning of the French word détroit; the city is named for the Detroit River, the strait that links Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie.

Windsor, Ontario, sits across the Detroit River in which compass direction from Detroit?

It is one of the few places where you drive south from the United States into Canada; Windsor is the southernmost major city in the country.

At what figure did Detroit's population peak in the 1950 census?

Detroit peaked at 1.85 million residents (1,849,568) in the 1950 census; the 2020 census counted about 639,000, a fall of more than 65 percent.

In which year did Detroit become the largest U.S. city ever to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy?

Detroit filed for Chapter 9 on July 18, 2013, the largest US municipal bankruptcy to that point; it exited in December 2014 after a 'grand bargain' shielded pensions and the art museum's collection.

Who was elected Detroit's first Black mayor in 1973?

Coleman Young won the 1973 election and took office in January 1974, serving five terms, twenty years in all, until 1994.

Which city replaced Detroit as Michigan's state capital in 1847?

Lansing became Michigan's capital in 1847, when the legislature moved it inland from Detroit, partly to put it farther from British-held Canada.

In which year did Henry Ford's moving assembly line begin operating, revolutionizing car manufacturing?

Ford's moving assembly line began in 1913, cutting Model T chassis assembly from roughly half a day to about ninety minutes.

With 2% of the US population, Detroit produced roughly what share of American war materiel in WWII?

The output earned the city the nickname 'Arsenal of Democracy'.

In 2015 Detroit became the first American place in which UNESCO Creative Cities category?

UNESCO named Detroit a City of Design in December 2015, the first US city in that category, citing its industrial and automotive design heritage.

Which ballpark opened in 2000 as the new home of the Detroit Tigers?

Comerica Park opened in April 2000 in downtown Detroit, replacing Tiger Stadium at Michigan and Trumbull, the ballpark the Tigers had used since 1912.

How tall is the central tower of the Renaissance Center, the tallest building in Michigan?

The Renaissance Center's central hotel tower rises 727 feet over 73 floors, and the riverfront complex opened in 1977.

Which automaker bought the Renaissance Center in 1996 for use as its global headquarters?

General Motors bought the Renaissance Center in 1996 and made the riverfront complex its global headquarters, moving from its longtime base in the New Center area.

How much did Berry Gordy Jr. borrow from his family's savings fund to start the label that became Motown?

Berry Gordy Jr. borrowed $800 from the Ber-Berry Co-op, his family's savings fund, in January 1959 to launch Tamla Records, the label that grew into Motown.

Motown's original headquarters, Hitsville U.S.A., stood on which Detroit street?

Hitsville U.S.A. stood at 2648 West Grand Boulevard; the house served as Motown's headquarters from 1959 to 1968 and opened as the Motown Museum in 1985.

In which year did Motown announce it was moving all of its operations from Detroit to Los Angeles?

Motown announced the move to Los Angeles in 1972, after Berry Gordy had shifted much of the company's film and television work there; the name blends 'motor' and 'town'.

Detroit techno pioneers Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May are known collectively as what?

The Belleville Three took their name from Belleville High School in suburban Detroit, where Atkins, Saunderson and May met as teenagers in the late 1970s.

Where is American Coney Island in relation to its Detroit chili-dog rival Lafayette Coney Island?

The two restaurants sit next door to each other on West Lafayette Boulevard downtown; Greek immigrant Gust Keros opened American, and his brother William opened Lafayette beside it.

Detroit-style pizza is rectangular because it was originally baked in steel trays made for what purpose?

The blue steel pans, made for holding automotive parts in Detroit factories, were adopted in 1946 at Buddy's Rendezvous on Six Mile Road for a pie topped with Wisconsin brick cheese.

Which Detroit pharmacist first served his namesake vanilla-flavored ginger ale in 1866?

James Vernor, a Detroit pharmacist, first sold Vernors ginger ale in 1866; the sharp, barrel-aged drink is the base of the Boston Cooler, a Detroit specialty despite the name.

Faygo, the Detroit soda founded in 1907, based its original flavors on recipes for what?

Brothers Ben and Perry Feigenson, Russian immigrant bakers, built Faygo's first flavors on their cake frosting recipes; decades later Insane Clown Posse made the soda notorious by spraying it over crowds.

In the 2010s the Ambassador Bridge carried roughly what share of US–Canada merchandise trade?

Through the 2010s the Ambassador Bridge, opened in 1929, carried over 25% of all merchandise trade between the US and Canada, the busiest commercial crossing on the border.

The Detroit–Windsor cable-stayed bridge begun in 2018 is named after which hockey player?

The Gordie Howe International Bridge honours 'Mr. Hockey', the Red Wings great; its 853-metre main span is the longest of any cable-stayed bridge in North America.

The Detroit–Windsor Tunnel of 1930 was the how-many-th underwater vehicle tunnel in the US?

It was the third such tunnel, after New York's Holland Tunnel of 1927 and Oakland's Posey Tube of 1928; the mile-long tube opened to traffic in November 1930.

Belle Isle in the Detroit River covers 982 acres, making it larger than which famous green space?

At 982 acres the island outsizes Manhattan's 843-acre Central Park; Frederick Law Olmsted drew plans for it in the 1880s, and it became a Michigan state park in 2014.

The 1967 Detroit uprising began when police raided what kind of establishment on 12th Street?

Police raided a 'blind pig', a hidden speakeasy bar, above a print shop at 12th and Clairmount early on July 23, 1967; arresting its patrons touched off five days of violence.

How many people were killed in the 1967 Detroit uprising?

The 1967 uprising killed 43 people, 33 of them Black, and injured more than a thousand; over 7,200 were arrested across five days.

Father Gabriel Richard composed Detroit's Latin city motto in response to which disaster?

The 1805 fire, which destroyed almost the whole town on June 11, 1805, prompted the motto 'Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus': 'We hope for better things; it shall rise from the ashes'.

Which Michigan territorial judge drew up Detroit's radial 1807 street plan?

Augustus Woodward, chief justice of the Michigan Territory, drew up the 1807 plan of radiating avenues; he joked that the street bearing his name ran 'wood-ward', toward the woods.

In 1909, Detroit's Woodward Avenue got the country's first mile of what?

The first mile of concrete roadway in the country was poured on Woodward Avenue north of Six Mile Road in 1909; in 1920 the Woodward and Michigan intersection got one of the first four-way, three-colour traffic lights.

Which numbered road forms Detroit's northern boundary and gave its name to a 2002 Eminem film?

8 Mile Road, the Michigan survey's baseline and state highway M-102, marks the city's northern edge; Eminem's 2002 film took its title from the road.

'Lose Yourself' was the first song from which genre to win the Oscar for Best Original Song?

'Lose Yourself' was the first hip hop song to win Best Original Song, at the March 2003 Oscars; Eminem skipped the ceremony and was asleep at home when it won.

Which Detroit garage-rock duo split in 2011 after six studio albums?

The White Stripes, Jack and Meg, announced their split in February 2011 after six studio albums; every sleeve had kept to red, white and black.

Aretha Franklin was the first woman inducted into what in 1987?

Aretha Franklin entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its second class, in January 1987, the first woman inducted; born in Memphis, she grew up in Detroit from age five and died there in 2018.

The Monument to Joe Louis at Jefferson and Woodward depicts what part of the boxer?

Robert Graham's sculpture, commissioned by Sports Illustrated, shows only his arm and fist: a 24-foot bronze forearm suspended from a pyramidal frame.

What does the Spirit of Detroit statue hold in its right hand, opposite the gilt sphere?

Marshall Fredericks's 1958 bronze holds a family group of figures in its right hand, symbolising human relationships, and a gilt sphere for God in its left; fans have dressed it in giant team jerseys for Detroit finals runs.

Which Detroit skyscraper, finished in 1929, is nicknamed the 'Cathedral of Finance'?

The Guardian Building, Wirt Rowland's 1929 Art Deco tower of orange brick and Pewabic tile, earned the nickname 'Cathedral of Finance'; it became a National Historic Landmark in 1989.

Detroit's Fox Theatre, opened in 1928 with more than 5,000 seats, was restored in 1988 by which family?

The Ilitches, Mike and Marian, bought the Fox in 1987 and reopened it in November 1988 after a full restoration; with 5,048 seats it is the largest of the original Fox theatres.

Michigan Central Station, reopened in 2024, was bought and restored by which automaker?

Ford bought the derelict station in 2018 and reopened it in June 2024 after a six-year restoration; its architects, Warren & Wetmore and Reed & Stem, also designed New York's Grand Central Terminal.

Which member of the Ford family commissioned Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry murals in 1932?

Edsel, his son, then the company's president, paid for Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry frescoes at the Detroit Institute of Arts, painted in 1932 and 1933.

In 1922 the Detroit Institute of Arts became the first U.S. museum to acquire a painting by which artist?

The 1922 purchase of Vincent van Gogh's 'Self-Portrait with Straw Hat' made the DIA the first US public museum to own a van Gogh; the same year it bought its first Matisse.

In which year did Tyree Guyton begin the Heidelberg Project, his outdoor art environment of painted houses?

Tyree Guyton began the Heidelberg Project in 1986 on Heidelberg Street on Detroit's east side; the city bulldozed parts of it in 1991 and 1999, and a string of arson fires destroyed several houses in the mid-2010s.

The Detroit People Mover, opened in 1987, runs a one-way elevated loop of roughly what length?

The People Mover's single-track loop runs about 3 miles (2.94) around downtown through 13 stations, circling in one direction since its July 1987 opening.

The Detroit Zoo, opened in 1928, was the first U.S. zoo to do what?

It was the first US zoo to feature bar-less habitats, using moats and sunken walls in the Hagenbeck style from its 1928 opening; its 125 acres actually lie in suburban Royal Oak and Huntington Woods.

The first production Model T was completed on September 27, 1908, at which Detroit Ford plant?

The Piquette Avenue plant, built in 1904, turned out the first Model T in September 1908; Ford moved assembly to a far larger plant in 1910, and the Piquette building survives as a museum.

What daily wage did Henry Ford announce in January 1914, more than double the norm?

The $5 day, announced on January 5, 1914, more than doubled the typical $2.34 daily wage at Ford's plant and drew thousands of job-seekers to Detroit.

After moving to Detroit in 1957, Rosa Parks worked in the office of which congressman?

Rosa Parks worked as a receptionist and secretary in John Conyers' Detroit congressional office from 1965 until she retired in 1988; she died in the city in 2005.

The Detroit Lions moved to the city in 1934 from which Ohio town, where they were called the Spartans?

The Portsmouth Spartans, from a small Ohio River town, were bought by George Richards in 1934 and renamed the Lions to pair with the Tigers; their first Detroit season launched the Thanksgiving Day game tradition.

Detroit Red Wings fans throw what onto the ice during the playoffs, a tradition begun in 1952?

An octopus was first thrown by the Cusimano brothers, fish-market owners, in 1952; its eight legs stood for the eight playoff wins then needed to take the Stanley Cup.

The Detroit Pistons moved to Detroit in 1957 from which Indiana city?

The Fort Wayne Pistons, named for the piston foundry that owned them, moved to Detroit in 1957 for a bigger market; the 'Bad Boys' of Isiah Thomas later won back-to-back titles in 1989 and 1990.

Ford Field incorporates a 1920s warehouse of which Detroit department store?

Ford Field wraps around a 1920s Hudson's warehouse, whose floors hold the suites along one sideline; the stadium opened in August 2002 next to the Tigers' ballpark.

Which street, the heart of Paradise Valley, was razed for the Chrysler Freeway?

Hastings Street ran through Paradise Valley, the Black commercial and nightlife district beside Black Bottom; the corridor was bulldozed around 1960 to build the Chrysler Freeway, I-375.

Which Native American leader's 1763 war saw Fort Detroit besieged but not captured?

Pontiac, an Odawa war leader, besieged Fort Detroit from May to October 1763 with Potawatomi, Ojibwe and Huron allies, but the British garrison held out.

British forces did not fully withdraw from Detroit until 1796, following which agreement?

The Jay Treaty of 1794 obliged Britain to give up its Great Lakes posts; Detroit was handed to US troops on July 11, 1796, thirteen years after the Treaty of Paris had ceded the region.

Which Detroit pharmaceutical firm was founded in 1866 and later absorbed by Warner-Lambert?

Parke-Davis, founded in Detroit in 1866, grew into one of America's biggest drug makers from its riverfront plant; Warner-Lambert acquired the firm in 1970.

Which mayor resigned in 2008 after felony convictions and was later sentenced to 28 years in prison?

Kwame Kilpatrick quit in September 2008 after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice in the text-message scandal; a later federal racketeering conviction brought the 28-year sentence.

Who was appointed Detroit's emergency manager a few months before its Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing?

Kevyn Orr, a Washington bankruptcy lawyer, took over as emergency manager in March; on June 14 he halted payments on about $2.5 billion of unsecured debt, and the Chapter 9 filing followed on July 18.

The J. W. Westcott II, which serves freighters on the Detroit River, holds what unique distinction?

It is the only floating ZIP code in the US, 48222, delivering mail to passing freighters by bucket; the J. W. Westcott Company dates to 1874 and the current boat entered service in 1949.

How many times has Detroit bid unsuccessfully to host the Summer Olympics, more than any other city?

Detroit lost all seven of its bids, spanning the Games of the mid-1940s to the early 1970s, to London, Helsinki, Melbourne, Rome, Tokyo, Mexico City and Munich in turn.

Which Detroit sprinter won the 100 m and 200 m at the 1932 Olympics, the first Black athlete with two golds?

Eddie Tolan, 'The Midnight Express', raised in Detroit and a Cass Tech graduate, won both sprints at Los Angeles in 1932, the first Black athlete with two Olympic golds.

Which team won Super Bowl XL, played at Ford Field in February 2006?

The Pittsburgh Steelers beat Seattle 21–10 on February 5, 2006, a fifth title that equalled the 49ers and Cowboys at the time, in Detroit native Jerome Bettis's final game.

How old was Stevie Wonder when he signed with Motown's Tamla label?

Signed at eleven in 1961 as Little Stevie Wonder, the Saginaw-born prodigy topped the Hot 100 two years later with 'Fingertips', the youngest solo artist to reach No. 1.

Which famous aviator was born in Detroit on February 4, 1902?

Charles Lindbergh was born in Detroit, his mother's home town, on February 4, 1902, but grew up mostly in Little Falls, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., before his 1927 solo Atlantic flight.

Which workwear brand was founded in Detroit in 1889 by its namesake, Hamilton?

Carhartt began in Detroit in 1889, when Hamilton Carhartt started making bib overalls for railroad workers with a handful of sewing machines; the company opened a Detroit flagship store in 2015 in the old Cass Motor Sales building.

Which August event on a Detroit-area avenue is the world's largest one-day car gathering?

The Dream Cruise began in 1995 as a Ferndale fundraiser for a children's soccer field and grew into a Woodward Avenue spectacle drawing around 1.5 million people and 40,000 classic cars each August.

Besides produce, Detroit's Eastern Market has the US's largest open-air market for what?

Flowers are the second speciality: Eastern Market's Flower Day each May is billed as the country's largest open-air bedding-plant market; the market moved to its 43-acre site in 1891.

Detroit's oldest surviving neighborhood was named for Irish immigrants from which county?

Corktown takes its name from County Cork, the origin of many of the Famine-era Irish who settled Detroit's near west side in the 1840s; by the 1850s about half the Eighth Ward was Irish.

Which pizza chain's name is on the arena the Red Wings and Pistons moved into in 2017?

Little Caesars Arena, the $862.9 million home of the Red Wings and Pistons, opened in September 2017, replacing Joe Louis Arena and the Palace of Auburn Hills.

What was the nickname of Ty Cobb, who spent 22 seasons with the Tigers?

The Georgia Peach, born in Narrows, Georgia, hit .366 over his career, the highest mark in the record book until 2024, when Josh Gibson's Negro Leagues figures were added.

Founded in 1701, Ste. Anne de Détroit is the second-oldest continuously operating US what?

Construction began on the feast day of Saint Anne, two days after the French landed, and Pope Francis made it a minor basilica in 2020.

RoboCop is set in a future Detroit, but where was the 1987 film mostly shot?

Dallas stood in for future Detroit, with Dallas City Hall playing OCP headquarters; the climactic steel-mill scenes were filmed near Pittsburgh, in Monessen, Pennsylvania.

How many Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles did the Supremes score?

The Supremes scored twelve Hot 100 number ones between 1964's 'Where Did Our Love Go' and 1969's 'Someday We'll Be Together', five of them consecutive in 1964–65.

Jimmy Hoffa was last seen in 1975 outside what kind of business in suburban Detroit?

He was last seen in the parking lot of a restaurant, the Machus Red Fox in Bloomfield Township, on July 30, 1975; the Teamsters boss was declared legally dead in 1982.

Roughly what share of liquor smuggled into the US during Prohibition came through Detroit?

An estimated 75% of the liquor smuggled into the US during Prohibition crossed the Detroit River from Windsor, where Ontario distilleries could legally produce for export, a route dubbed the 'Windsor–Detroit Funnel'.

Detroit Metropolitan Airport is actually located in which suburb?

It sits about 18 miles southwest of downtown, was dedicated as Wayne County Airport in 1930 and went by Romulus Field during the Second World War.

Which two separate cities sit as enclaves almost entirely surrounded by Detroit?

Hamtramck and Highland Park both boomed with auto plants a century ago and fought off annexation; they share only a short border with each other, and Detroit surrounds them on every other side.

Detroit News outlet WWJ, on air since August 1920, claims to be the world's first what?

It began as amateur station 8MK, reading news between phonograph records, and has argued with Pittsburgh's KDKA over the 'first' title for a century.

The Detroit Free Press Marathon boasts the world's only official international what?

The underwater mile runs through the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel on the way back from Canada; runners cross to Windsor on the Ambassador Bridge and return beneath the river.

The QLine streetcar on Woodward Avenue takes its name from which company?

Quicken Loans, Dan Gilbert's mortgage lender, bought the naming rights in 2016; the 3.3-mile line opened in May 2017, six decades after Detroit's original streetcars stopped running in 1956.

Which product did Detroit's Stroh brewery keep making for decades after Prohibition ended?

Stroh's started making ice cream during Prohibition to keep the plant busy, and the brand outlived the beer: the Detroit brewery closed in 1985, but Stroh's ice cream stayed on sale for decades afterwards.

What gives the 'bumpy cake' from Detroit's Sanders its name?

The ridges of buttercream on top, piped in rows on a devil's food base and sealed under Sanders' fudge frosting, make the bumps; Fred Sanders opened his Woodward Avenue candy store in 1875.

Detroit legend says the city's founder angered the Nain Rouge by striking it with what?

Legend says the city's founder hit the Nain Rouge with his cane and was cursed for it; every spring the Marche du Nain Rouge chases a costumed dwarf out of town.

The Detroit Grand Prix began in 1982 as a round of which racing series?

Formula One raced on a street circuit around the Renaissance Center from 1982 to 1988; the event later moved to an island park in 1992 and returned downtown in 2023.

Kathryn Bigelow's 2017 film 'Detroit' dramatizes the 1967 police killings at which motel?

The Algiers Motel on Woodward Avenue was where three Black teenagers, Carl Cooper, Aubrey Pollard and Fred Temple, were killed on the night of July 25–26, 1967, during a police and National Guard search.

Which musician paid $142,000 of the Detroit Masonic Temple's back taxes in 2013?

Jack White's anonymous $142,000 gift stopped a tax foreclosure on the 1926 building, the world's largest Masonic temple; it renamed its theatre the Jack White Theater, and he married on its stage in 2022.

The ornate Michigan Theatre of 1926, downtown on Bagley, was gutted and turned into what?

It became a parking garage in 1977 after office tenants in the attached building threatened to leave without parking; cars sit beneath the ruined plasterwork of a Rapp & Rapp movie palace.

Detroit's 1943 race riot, which killed 34 people, began with brawls where?

The fighting started on Belle Isle on the evening of June 20, 1943, among youths at the crowded park, spread onto the bridge to the mainland, and false rumours carried it across the city for three days.

Which celebrated attorney defended Dr. Ossian Sweet in his 1925 Detroit murder trial?

Clarence Darrow, hired by the NAACP, defended Sweet after he and his friends fired on a white mob outside his new house; a hung jury was followed by his brother Henry's acquittal and the charges were dropped.

Who coached the Red Wings' 'Russian Five' to the 1997 Stanley Cup?

Scotty Bowman, in his fourth season behind the Detroit bench, guided the Russian Five to the 1997 Cup; six days after the win, defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov was critically injured in a limousine crash that ended his career.

The 1903 Packard Plant was the first US auto factory built with what material?

Reinforced concrete, first used for an auto factory in Building 10 of the Packard complex in 1905, gave the 3.5-million-square-foot East Grand Boulevard ruin its staying power; in WWII the plant built Merlin engines for P-51 Mustangs.

Which architect designed the Fisher Building, the Packard Plant and GM's old HQ?

Albert Kahn's 30-storey Fisher Building of 1928, faced in limestone, granite and marble, has been called 'Detroit's largest art object'; his firm also designed the Packard Plant and the old GM Building.

Which Tigers pitcher won three complete games in the 1968 World Series?

Mickey Lolich won Games 2, 5 and 7, pitching the finale on two days' rest after the Tigers came back from 3–1 down to beat St. Louis, and was named Series MVP.

Detroit's NBA team began as a company side for an Indiana foundry owned by whom?

Fred Zollner's foundry made pistons for carmakers and tractor builders, which is how the team got its name; he also helped broker the 1949 merger that created the NBA.

Detroit's razed Black Bottom neighborhood was named by French settlers for what?

The French named the area for its dark, fertile soil, bottomland left by the Savoyard River, which was buried as a sewer in 1827; the district was razed in the late 1950s and early 1960s for I-375 and Lafayette Park.

The Penobscot Building, Detroit's tallest until 1977, is named for a river in which state?

The Penobscot is a river and Native nation in Maine, home state of Simon J. Murphy, whose family built the tower; at 566 feet it was the tallest US building outside New York and Chicago in 1928.

Which American general surrendered Detroit to the British without a fight in 1812?

William Hull gave up Fort Detroit on August 16, 1812, after Isaac Brock and Tecumseh bluffed him with a smaller force; a court-martial sentenced him to death for cowardice, but President Madison spared him.

Which Woolworth Building architect designed Detroit's marble Main Library?

Cass Gilbert's Italian Renaissance library opened on Woodward in 1921, clad in Vermont marble with serpentine Italian trim; his son, Cass Gilbert Jr., added the wings in 1963.

Pewabic Pottery founder Mary Chase Perry grew up near a copper mine in which Michigan region?

Mary Chase Perry grew up in Hancock, in the Upper Peninsula's copper country, near the Pewabic mine that gave her Detroit studio its name in 1903; its iridescent tiles line Chicago's Shedd Aquarium.

Who centred the Red Wings' famed 'Production Line' between its two star wingers from 1947?

Sid Abel, the veteran captain, centred the line from 1947 after new coach Tommy Ivan put his two fastest young wingers either side of him; all three ended up in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

What did Mayor Hazen Pingree have residents grow on vacant lots in the 1890s?

Pingree's 'potato patches' of 1894 let the unemployed grow potatoes and other vegetables on vacant city land during the depression; the shoe magnate sold his prize horse to buy seed and tools.