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DETROIT'S MILWAUKEE JUNCTION SURVEY HAER MI-416 Milwaukee Junction HAER MI-416 Detroit Michigan WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA FIELD RECORDS HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 1849 C Street NW Washington, DC 20240-0001 HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD DETROIT’S MILWAUKEE JUNCTION SURVEY HAER MI-416 Location: Milwaukee Junction, Detroit, Michigan The survey boundaries are Woodward Avenue on the west and St. Aubin on the east. The southern boundary is marked by the Grand Trunk Western railroad line, which runs just south of East Baltimore from Woodward past St. Aubin. The northern boundary of the survey starts on the west end at East Grand Boulevard, runs east along the boulevard to Russell, moves north along Russell to Euclid, and extends east along Euclid to St. Aubin. Significance: The area known as Milwaukee Junction, located just north of Detroit’s city center, was a center of commercial and industrial activity for more than a century. Milwaukee Junction served, if not as the birthplace of American automobile manufacturing, then as its nursery. In addition to the Ford Motor Company and General Motors, many early auto manufacturers and their support services (especially body manufacturers like the Fisher Brothers, C.R. Wilson, and Trippensee Auto Body) were also located in the area, probably because of the proximity of the railroads. Historians: Kenneth Shepherd and Richard Sucré, 2003 Project Information: The Historic American Engineering Record conducted a survey of Detroit’s Milwaukee Junction, a center of auto and related industrial production, in summer 2003. The City of Detroit and the city’s Historic Designation Advisory Board sponsored the survey. Richard O’Connor, HAER, served as project leader. The field team included historians Kenneth Shepherd and Richard Sucré. Justine Christianson, HAER Historian, edited the report. Jet Lowe, HAER Photographer, produced large-format photographs of select sites. These include: HAER MI-333, 1900 East Milwaukee (Industrial Building) HAER MI-334, Ivan Doverspike Company HAER MI-336, The Fairmount Creamery Corporation HAER MI-337, Pioneer Building HAER MI-340, American Can Company HAER MI-343, Russell Industrial Center HAER MI-345, Murray Body Company Complex HAER MI-351, New Center Stamping HAER MI-352, National Can Company HAER MI-353, Ford Service Building HABS MI-443, Engine Company Nos. 11 & 28 Firehouse DETROIT’S MILWAUKEE JUNCTION SURVEY HAER MI-416 (Page 2) Chronology: 1837 Milwaukee Junction begins to be defined by the Pontiac Railroad (later the Detroit & Milwaukee), which runs from the waterfront to Pontiac along Dequindre. 1899 Construction of F. A. Thompson Manufacturing Company (1962 Trombly), the oldest surviving building within the survey boundaries. 1908 The three Trippensee brothers build a plant at 2679 East Grand Boulevard to produce their famous planetariums. Their wood and metalworking skills lead them to expand into auto body manufacture, and the factory is enlarged for this purpose in 1915. 1909 Detroit Wire Spring Company builds a factory at 1900 Marston. This plant was later absorbed into the Murray Body Corporation as its fender division. Albert Kahn designs and builds the Boulevard Building (7310 Woodward) for the Ford Motor Company as its service headquarters. The building is enlarged in 1913. 1911 The building housing the Anderson Electric Car Company (now Russell Industrial Center, Building 2 at 1610 Clay) is erected. An Art Stove Company storeroom opens at 6500 Russell. 1916 National Can Company (later the George C. Wetherbee Company) constructs a factory at what is now 2566 East Grand Boulevard. American Can Company also opens its doors at 1400 Trombly. 1918 Richard Brothers Die Works (later Allied Products Corporation) builds their plant at 1560 Milwaukee. 1919 Construction of C.R. Wilson Body Company Building 5 (1666 Clay), now part of the Russell Industrial Center, notable for its unique curved façade facing the railroad. 1920 Construction of C.R. Wilson Body Company Buildings 1 (1600 Clay), 1A (1604 Clay), and 4 (1630 Clay), all now part of the Russell Industrial Center. The Detroit Machine & Tool Company opens its doors at 6545 St. Antoine. 1922 Construction of C.R. Wilson Body Company Buildings 4A (1640 Clay) and 4B (1650 Clay), both now part of the Russell Industrial Center. Construction of Fisher Body Stamping Plant (Plant #37), 950 Milwaukee, now New Center Stamping. 1923 Construction begins on a new building for the Murray Body Corporation—Body Division, designed by Albert Kahn (now Russell Industrial Center, Building 3, DETROIT’S MILWAUKEE JUNCTION SURVEY HAER MI-416 (Page 3) 1614 Clay). An addition to the structure is completed in 1929. Richard Brothers Die Works also opens a new factory on Lyman Place in this year. 1925 The National Drill Twist Company constructs its factory at 1925 Clay. J.W. Murray Manufacturing buys the C.D. Widman Company, manufacturers of auto bodies, mirrors, and glass products. 1926 The building housing the McCord Manufacturing Supply Company and Springman Paper Supply Company opens at 1579 East Milwaukee. 1928 The Detroit Fire Company, Engine Company No. 28 and Ladder Company No. 11 opens at 1475 East Milwaukee. 1929 The Boyer-Campbell Company opens its new machine tools factory at 6540 St. Antoine. The Fairmount Creamery moves into its building at 608 East Milwaukee. 1947 Frank Brothers Iron Works (later the Peschke Packing Company) builds their plant at 2600 East Grand Boulevard. Introduction Milwaukee Junction received its name from the meeting of two of Michigan’s earliest railways. The oldest of these was the Detroit, Grand Haven & Milwaukee line, which was a lineal descendent of the Detroit & Pontiac Railroad, originally incorporated in 1834. By 1855, the line was running trains between the two southeastern Michigan cities. The line was reorganized as the Detroit, Grand Haven & Milwaukee in 1878 and merged with the Canadian Grand Trunk Western line in 1928. The second of the two lines that met in Detroit at Milwaukee Junction was the old Michigan Central line. First chartered by the Michigan legislature in 1846, the line acquired the charter of the Central line, one of the first three parallel lines to cross the state from east to west.1 New York Central leased Michigan Central beginning in 1930 for an extended period, but in 1961, the line’s assets began to be divided among different companies. In 1978, Penn Central received much of what remained of Michigan Central, but when that line went bankrupt, some of its assets went to Consolidated Rail, or ConRail.2 1 The early railroads appear on at least four maps of Detroit published between 1837 and 1889, the date when the area begins to be covered by Sanborn insurance maps. See “City of Detroit, Michigan, from late and accurate Surveys, May 1837,” in Brian Leigh Dunnigan, Frontier Metropolis: Picturing Early Detroit, 1701-1838 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001), 202; Sylvester Wesley Higgins, “Map of Wayne County” (Cincinnati: Doolittle & Munson, [1840]); S. Augustus Mitchell, “Plan of the City of Detroit, 1882”; Atlas of the City of Detroit, Michigan (New York: E. Robinson, 1885); and Sanborn Insurance Company, Insurance Maps of Detroit, Michigan (New York: Sanborn Insurance Company, 1889-2001). Of the railroads appearing on these maps, the Dequindre line of the Grand Trunk (the old Pontiac Railroad) appears on all five maps or collections. The old Michigan Central Line, approaching Milwaukee Junction from the west, appears only on Mitchell’s map, the Robinson atlas, and on Sanborn maps, from which it can be concluded that Milwaukee Junction came into existence between 1840 and 1882. 2 Graydon M. Meints, Michigan Railroads and Railroad Companies (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1992), 170-71, 176-77, 182-83. For the purposes of this report, Michigan Central refers to the lines originally owned DETROIT’S MILWAUKEE JUNCTION SURVEY HAER MI-416 (Page 4) Background The presence of the railroads did not immediately make Milwaukee Junction an auto manufacturer’s paradise. Early major industries in the area were related either to the railroad itself (the Peninsula Car Company, located just south of the survey area, built cars for the railroad beginning in the late nineteenth century) or the food industry. The latter included such local specialty shops as the Michigan Celery Beverage Company, the Peschke Sausage Company, and several dairy and milk-processing plants, including the Clover Milk Company and its successor, the J. Schlaff Creamery Company (both at 105 East Baltimore), the State Creamery Company (at the corner of East Grand and DuBois), and the Fairmount Creamery. Most of the buildings that housed these companies have been destroyed, but the Fairmount Creamery remains as a reminder of this era in Detroit’s history. The industry that benefitted the nascent auto manufacturers the most was the carriage building trade. Early carriage builders included the Anderson Carriage Company, the C.R. and J.C. Wilson Carriage Company, and the Johnson Carriage Company, which was in business at 101 East Baltimore before 1905 and remained in business until nearly 1920.3 The skilled wood and metal workers in the carriage trade quickly applied their talents to making automobile bodies. This led to the development of new businesses specializing in the production of bodies for automobiles, such as the Fisher Brothers, Trippensee Closed Body Company, the C.R. Wilson Body Company, and the Murray Body Corporation of America. These companies supplied bodies to both major and minor companies, including Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Chrysler, Hupp, Reo, and DeSoto. Before the arrival of the automotive industry, Milwaukee Junction was largely residential, and residences and small businesses still make up a significant proportion of the area.4 Residents were not all transient auto workers who moved on to other jobs within a few years.