Homes of Business and Community Leaders: Past and Present
On Mon., March 2, learn details about the city’s movers and shakers, as well as the interesting homes they lived in.
Historic Highlight
A Hidden Harroun Car in the Garage
When Jane Knapp Arndt returned to Dearborn in 2019 to sell the family home, she uncovered more than just a house whose family history dated back to 1636 when her earliest known ancestor, Francois Chauvin, arrived. 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 descendent named Francois Chauvin purchased Private Claim #33, a “ribbon farm” stretching from the Rouge River to Michigan Avenue in 1795. The parcel, once including 196 acres, was maintained by the family through the French, British, and American Colonial periods until it became part of Springwells Township. Much of Chauvin’s farm was purchased by Henry Ford and now belongs to the Rouge Plant.
Charles Chauvin, Sr, Jane’s great uncle, probably built this brick foursquare home on Michigan Avenue around 1915. Charles worked for the railroad but starting in 1923, the home became a showroom for Robert Ford’s fledgling dealership. Eventually, Ford’s dealership grew and became Fairlane Ford, now Mission Ford. The home was moved to Charles Street around 1929.
The home was not just a home – it had a garage sheltering what would become a coveted vintage automobile – a Harroun that Charles had purchased in 1919 at the age of 60. Ray Harroun – race car driver, inventor, engineer, chauffeur – built the cars in Wayne, Michigan, under 3,000 of them – starting in 1926 for about five years, making them extremely rare and valuable. Charles’ wife died in 1922, after which the car was parked and put up on blocks in the garage.
The house eventually passed to Clinton Knapp, Jane’s father, and when Jane’s sister died in 2012, leaving her in charge of the house, she continued to pay taxes (for over 300 years in Michigan, she joked!). And all this time, the Harroun sat unnoticed. In 2019, Jane sold the house and put the Harroun up for sale at the 2019 RM Sotheby’s Labor Day Auction in Auburn, Indiana.
Little did anyone know that Todd Harroun, a descendent of Ray, had been searching for just such a car since 1989. Amazingly, it was being offered for sale only one hour from his home! Todd is now the proud owner of the Harroun (in perfect operating condition) and even brought it back to Dearborn so Jane could ride in the car which sat in her garage for so many years.
The home is unique for its wooden pillars, separating the foyer and living and dining rooms. They were originally treated with linseed oil, and the finish hasn’t changed. Ceilings are high, and the house stays cool in the summer. There is a fruit cellar under the front porch, where food was stored before refrigerators.
House photo by Ian Tomashik, story adapted from a 2018 Press & Guide article by L. Glenn O’Kray, further adapted by Mariya Fogarasi.
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Stories From the Sidewalk
Book Features History of Arsenal and Riverbend Neighborhoods
Stories From the Sidewalk, a hefty 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.
