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Detroit Historical Museum

Address:5401 Woodward Avenue Detroit, MI 48202 View map Phone:313.833.1805 Fax:313.833.5342 Contact:

Cobblestone streets, 19th Century stores, an auto assembly line, toy trains, a pilot house from a Great Lakes freighter, and a fur trading post from the 1700s are but a few of the wonders to see at the Detroit Historical Museums. For over 70 years, the Museums have chronicled the life and times of the city, safeguarding its rich history.

When attorney and historian Clarence M. Burton donated his collection of historical papers to the Detroit Public Library in 1914, he started a chain of events that ultimately led to the creation of the Detroit Historical Museum. Seven years after Burton’s donation, in December 1921, he brought together 19 prominent local historians to create the Detroit Historical Society, an organization dedicated to the preservation of the city’s history. In 1927, membership offices were leased, and Society treasurer J. Bell Moran was appointed to set up a museum. A curator was hired and on November 19, 1928, the “highest museum in the world“ opened in a one-room suite on the 23rd floor of the Barlum Tower, now the Cadillac Tower.

The Great Depression deferred many a Detroiter’s dreams, and the Society was no exception. With the prospect of building its own museum on hold, the Society worked to engage the community. Enlarging its collections, the Society endeavored to increase membership and pursued several unsuccessful attempts to acquire its own building.

The 1940s brought success to the Society’s efforts to build a new museum. In 1942, popular Detroit News columnist George W. Stark became president of the Society. Stark possessed the respect and influence necessary to raise the sizable monies needed. By 1945, the Society had raised more than $250,000. The Society offered to turn the money raised and its 15,000 item collection over to the City of Detroit. In exchange, the City would create a historical commission to build and operate the planned museum. Creating the commission required a city charter amendment, and the Society, with support from major local businesses, got the issue on the November 1945 ballot. When the referendum passed, the Society assumed a new role as primary fund?raiser for the Museum.

On July 24, 1951, the 250th anniversary of Detroit’s founding by Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac, the new museum was dedicated in an elaborate ceremony. In attendance were such dignitaries as Governor G. Mennen Williams; Mayor Albert E. Cobo; U.S. Senator Homer Ferguson representing Secretary of State Dean Acheson; the French and British ambassadors; and Detroiter Ralph Bunche of the United Nations.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the Commission opened two other museums. In 1949, the City procured Historic Fort Wayne, built in 1845, from the Federal Government. The same year, the Maritime Museum of Detroit was opened on Belle Isle aboard the landed wood schooner J. T. Wing, the last commercial sailing ship on the Great Lakes.

In the late 1940s to the 1960s, the Detroit Historical Society was the largest local history organization in the U.S. with some 3,300 members. Under the leadership of Henry D. Brown, director of both the Society and the Museum, the Museum became one of the leading cultural institutions in the Midwest with changing exhibits, tours, special events, and educational programs.

In 1956, the Maritime Museum was closed due to the deteriorating condition of the J. T. Wing. The Dossin Family provided the funds for a new maritime museum. The new facility, the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, opened on the Wing’s former Belle Isle site on July 24, 1961.

Following Detroit’s 1967 riot, a glimmer of the city’s rebirth was apparent within the Museum system. Within a year, the new DeRoy wing of the Dossin Great Lakes Museum opened, and, on July 24, 1968, the Detroit Historical Museum doubled its exhibit space with the addition of the Kresge wing. In 1969, the Museum acquired the Moross House on East Jefferson, Detroit’s oldest surviving brick residence, which houses the Detroit Garden Center offices.

In 1971, the Historical Commission undertook an extensive restoration of Historic Fort Wayne. The Commanding Officer’s house was restored to its 1880s appearance, and a parade ground was added for military reenactments and special events. In 1979, the Great Lakes Indian Museum was opened at the fort adjacent to the last surviving Indian burial mound in the Detroit area.

Detroit’s economic difficulties forced the curtailment of many museum activities. When state-provided operating funds declined in the early 1990s, Historic Fort Wayne was closed to the public. With cutbacks in Museum staff and programs, the Detroit Historical Society’s fund-raising efforts kicked into high gear. The Society raised $750,000 from private sources for a new auditorium and toy gallery within the main museum. Funding was secured for the Collections Resource Center, a state-of-the-art storage facility, archives and curatorial office complex at Historic Fort Wayne.

As the 1990s progressed, the Museums rode a wave of success. In 1993, the Detroit Historical Society raised nearly $4 million for exhibits, educational programs and endowment. The key permanent exhibit made possible by the success of this campaign, The Motor City Exhibition, opened in 1995. This exhibit traces Detroit’s development into the Automobile Capital of the World and includes an operating assembly line with a two-story body drop from the General Motors Cadillac Division Clark Street Plant.

In 1998, the Museum opened Frontiers to Factories: Detroiters at Work 1701-1901, an exhibit depicting the city’s economic progress from French fur trading post to major industrial center.

Each of the Detroit Historical Museums offers something different. The Dossin Great Lakes Museum provides a unique perspective on maritime history and how the Detroit River and Great Lakes commerce contributed to the growth, development and culture of the region. Historic Fort Wayne, while not currently open to the public, has a wealth of history within its walls. Serious efforts are underway to reopen the Fort.

The Detroit Historical Museum offers the widest range of exhibits and educational programs, and attracts the greatest number of visitors. At the Museum, visitors walk through time in The Streets of Old Detroit with shops from the 1840s, 1870s and 1900s. They can glimpse the city’s role in the Underground Railroad in the Doorway to Freedom exhibit. Children and adults alike delight in The Glancy Trains toy train exhibit, where they can blow whistles, lower crossing gates, and get an engineer’s eye view from a TV camera mounted in one of the engines. The Museum also hosts a number of traveling and temporary exhibits.

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