Detroit's birthday: It survived fire, bankruptcy and losing Lions' seasons
Detroit, an American city with a French name, just turned 322 years old.
And while the city has seen better days, it also has something to celebrate: resilience. No matter what Detroiter's face, they keep on keeping on. At one time, the city was referred to as the "Paris of the Midwest." And like every community, it has gone through some ups and downs.
"We literally and figuratively have rebuilt ourselves many times," said Jeanette Pierce, the founder and president of the City Institute, which aims to promote better understanding about Detroit and connect the city's past to its present. "We might fall. We might stumble. But we get back up every single time."
Pierce, who gives Detroit tours, said that most people think the city is only 300-something years old. But as a settlement, she adds, it's even older, when the indigenous people, who lived in the area long before the Europeans arrived, are taken into account.
Claude Molinari, the president and CEO of Visit Detroit, said Detroit is a city that "moves people."
"The city’s 322nd birthday is a time to celebrate how Detroiters continue to shape the world through our music, art, and innovation," he added. "We helped put the world on wheels with the assembly line, the first paved road, the first stop sign, and now we are building the first EV charging road."
History books tell us that Detroit was founded by Antoine de la mothe Cadillac, a Frenchmen, on July 24, 1701. Years before that, he came to the New World and adopted a new name to sound like a noble. In 1698, he returned to France to petition King Louis XIV to open a French outpost along "le détroit," the strait.
Two years later, the Detroit Historical Society said, Cadillac persuaded one of the king’s ministers, Jérôme Phélypeaux Comte de Pontchartrain, to authorize an expedition to establish not just an outpost, but a settlement. And a year later, Cadillac did.
He led an expedition "by way of the Ottawa River, through Lake Nipissing, out down French River into Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, and finally the Detroit River, stopping for the night on Grosse Ile on July 23."
The next day, with a flotilla of 25 boats, he "chose the narrowest part of the river, as the site for Fort Pontchartrain," in honor of the minister who approved their trip. The historical society added the settlement’s full name, Fort Pontchartrain du détroit, became Detroit.
In 1805, a fire burned the city down. Detroiters formed a bucket brigade to save it.
Unwilling to give up on Detroit, Fr. Gabriel Richard penned the city's motto: "Speramus Meliora; resurgent cineribus." From Latin, it translates: "We hope for better things; it shall arise from the ashes." The city would keep arising from hardship.
At the start of the Civil War, in 1861, Detroiters enlisted to answer President Abraham Lincoln’s call to arms to save the nation. When the state's volunteers arrived in Washington, Lincoln is said to have exclaimed, "Thank God for Michigan!"
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At the turn of the century, Detroit became the engine of the automotive industry.
And during World War II, the city served as the "arsenal of democracy," answering the call of another president, Franklin Roosevelt. The city turned out the soldiers, sailors and armaments that would help defeat fascism and, this time, to save the world.
In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr., led a march of more than 125,000 in Detroit, refining lines for his "I Have a Dream" speech in D.C. two months later. Detroiters would play a role in fighting for civil rights. At King Solomon Baptist Church, Malcolm X gave his "Message to the Grassroots" speech.
Detroit survived one of the nation’s bloodiest urban uprisings; a gasoline crisis; and a downtown decline. But many of those buildings have since been renovated, and one — the former Hudson's department store — is being remade into an office tower, rising gradually.
A decade ago, the city filed for bankruptcy, the largest in U.S. history — and emerged, some say, stronger.
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Detroit’s sports teams have won championships. Its Lions have lost a lot of games. But fans don't stop believin'.
As another birthday for the city comes and goes, Detroit’s residents — like the men and women who founded, built and continue to rebuild it — will quietly commemorate this resolve by continuing to not just hope for better things and better days, but work for them.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit's birthday: It survived fire, bankruptcy, losing Lions' seasons
