Dearborn's Histories and Mysteries
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Stories From the Sidewalk
New Book Features History of Arsenal and Riverbend Neighborhoods
Stories From the Sidewalk, a hefty new hardcover book at nearly 380 pages published by the Museum Guild of Dearborn, is on sale now at the Dearborn Historical Museum gift shop or available online at https://thedhm.org/books.
To say the least it is an oversized stocking stuffer for the holiday season that every fan of architecture and devotee of history will treasure.
Three years in the making, it is the work of a passionate group of history buffs and researchers. This coffee table book documents over 360 houses and buildings in Dearborn’s Arsenal and Riverbend neighborhoods. With the belief that every house and building has a story to tell, the editors organized the book by neighborhood and street address along with a full-color photograph and details on the history and architecture of each historic resource.
Subtitled, A Walk Through 137 Years That Shaped Dearborn (1833 – 1970) the book is designed as a walking tour of these two charming and historic west Dearborn neighborhoods. It surveys and preserves for future generations the story of Dearborn’s growth from a village on the Chicago Road (Michigan Avenue) to a bustling and thriving city as the area became the automotive capital of the world and the manufacturing epicenter of the Ford Motor Company.
Co-authors and editors Christopher Merlo and L. Glenn O’Kray undertook this project with a sense of urgency to document and preserve the stories of these historically significant houses and buildings before they are either razed or drastically renovated – a fate that has befallen several houses and buildings in the Arsenal and Riverbend neighborhoods.
All income from the sale of the book will go to the Museum Guild of Dearborn.
Historic Highlight
Chauvin Home / Foursquare / ~1915
Charles Chauvin, Sr. built this brick foursquare home on Michigan Ave. around 1915. It was later moved to Charles Street, where it stands today.
His ancestor, Francois Chauvin, arrived in the area in 1636. Chauvin was sent by the French government to survey the ‘New World.’ He became close to the Potawatomi Indians who helped him portage around the Niagara Falls to the Detroit River and on to the Rouge River. He decided it would be a good place to live.
A later Chauvin descendent purchased a ‘ribbon farm’ stretching from the Rouge River to Michigan Avenue, in 1795. The parcel once included 196 acres. The Chauvin family maintained the property through the French, British, and American Colonial periods until it became part of Springwells Township.
Starting in 1923, the home became a showroom for Robert Ford’s fledgling dealership. A 1931 ad remembers, “we used the living room of the home as an office, and the front lawn as a showroom. The service department… was located in a barn at the rear.” Eventually, Ford’s dealership grew and became Fairlane Ford, now Mission Ford. The home was moved to Charles Street around 1929.
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