Poremba - Detroit: city of industry

DETROIT RIVERFRONT, 1868. The riverfront is lined with warehouses to accommodate the arrival of raw materials from other parts of the state. Both sail and steam vessels are present in this photograph, tied up at different wharves just south of the city center. Lumber and iron ore shipments arrived regularly, to be used as building materials, furniture, iron and steel.

THE GRAIN ELEVATORS AT DETROIT, 1854. The new Vanderbilt grain elevator is open for business in this illustration from Frank Leslies Illustrated Newspaper . These elevators would have handled products grown in Michigan and Wisconsin and transshipped to ports on the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada. The grain arrived by wagon, and later by an ever-growing railroad system, and was loaded on sail and steam freighters. Detroit was ideally situated geographically to become a grain-shipping and receiving port and would establish a Board of Trade to handle sales and freighting of various grains, which would number in the millions of bushels each year.

THE LOCAL FLOUR MILL. The entire work force of the Charles Appel Flour Mill takes a break from their duties to pose for this photograph during the 1860s. Area farmers brought their grain to be rolled into flour at mills like this one, which stood at 17th Street and the Michigan Central Railroad tracks.

GRIST MILLS. An old grist mill on West Larned Street and Second Avenue was owned by Noah Sutton and called the old city mill. Mills date back to the founding of the city by the French and remained in operation through the 1890s. They were often powered by steam.

TEA IMPORTERS. The W.J. Gould Company, seen here inspecting a shipment of Japan tea, was a leading wholesale grocery house in Detroit. W.J. Gould, born in England in 1830, came to Detroit with his parents in 1836. His father and grandfather were both grocers and both had failed in their business. But it would be the son who really built up a successful business. In 1864, he went into a partnership with M.S. Fellers on Woodward Avenue, bought Fellers interest in 1873 and moved the firm to Jefferson Avenue where he prospered. In 1880, he formed the W.J. Gould and Company along with D.D. Cady and Lewis F. Thompson. The business continued to grow and prosper and Gould served on the Boards of more than one Detroit bank, always a symbol of success.

RIVERFRONT BUSINESS. This illustration depicts a section of warehouses belonging to the firm of Newberry and Dole, commission agents important to the transaction of business along the riverfront. Transshipments of goods and materials into and out of the Port of Detroit were essential to the citys growth and prosperity as a major city along the Great Lakes waterway.

WOODWARD AVENUE, 1845. This section of Woodward Avenue between Atwater and Woodbridge Streets depicts a number of early and important businesses in frontier Detroit. Nelson Scovell operated a grocery right next to one of his competitors and a clothing store (on the extreme right), made up the block.

CAMPBELL, LINN AND COMPANY. At the northeast corner of Jefferson and Woodward Avenues stood the Scotch Store, an early Detroit landmark. This 1858 photograph depicts a successful business that looks as though it is about to expand a little along Jefferson Avenue. Importers and retailers of dry goods, cloaks, and shawls, Mr. Campbell and Mr. Linn started their business in the early 1840s. they carried an extensive line of staple and fancy dry goods, ranging from the latest novelties in dress fabrics, notions, trimmings, fancy goods, ladies and gents furnishings, gloves, laces, linens and hosiery, to a large assortment of cloaks and shawls. The firms fortunes would continue to grow and a larger, three-story brick building would be built a little farther up Woodward. Campbells descendents would be a part of the business until the late 1880s. The two buildings to the right of the Scotch Store were badly burned by fire.

ALL BECAUSE OF THE FUR TRADE. This small stretch of downtown Detroit taken during the early 1860s shows Baries Hat Factory, certainly one of the citys earliest industries, which could be dated back to the founding days of the French, who were the manufacturers of beaver hats for King Louis XIII. John P. Barie opened his first hat factory on Jefferson Avenue in late 1859 or early 1860 and the following year went into partnership with a fellow haberdasher named Joseph Ulrich, calling the business Ulrich and Barie. Then, in 1870, Mr. Barie was in business on his own again with a shop on Woodward Avenue. His business prospered and by the middle of that decade, he owned a second store on Michigan Avenue, just west of Woodward.

THE DETROIT CAR WORKS. In 1857, cars in Detroit meant railroad cars, the rolling stock that transported goods from one point to the other faster than ever before on a nationwide, growing network of railroads. With its access to both lumber and iron, Detroit was to become one of the countrys largest manufacturers of railroad cars and railroad trucks, the wheels on which the cars rode. The Detroit Car Works was founded in 1860 by Dr. George B. Russell. In 1862, the firm had contracts worth $60,000 to build freight cars for the Michigan Southern and Cincinnati Air Line Railroads and were already building the same for the Detroit & Milwaukee and Grand Trunk Railways. Russell employed 75 men in his works at Croghan and DeQuindre Streets. The main building measured 275 by 60 feet and had two planning machines and an iron working machine.