Livonia traces its origins

Livonia traces its origins - 10/31/02



Thursday, October 31, 2002

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Robin Buckson / The Detroit News

A book by Livonia resident Gene Scott, "Detroit Beginnings: Early Villages and Old Neighborhoods," gave Detroit Historical Museum officials the idea for the exhibit. Jill Grannan, left, is the exhibit's curator.

Livonia traces its origins
Museum's exhibit showcases heritage of 11 Metro areas

By Shanteé Woodards / The Detroit News

Robin Buckson / The Detroit News

Items from the Wilson Dairy are part of the exhibit. Livonia was a farming community in the 1800s.
Stroll through the past
   Elm Park: The area was north and east of city limits in 1875, an affordable alternative to the more elaborate and elegant homes of Indian Village to the south. It had one of the city's largest shopping centers, including a Sears department store that was demolished by 1970. Detroit annexed Elm Park in 1891.
   Forest Lawn: Named for its stately trees, this area was a 128-acre farming community west of Van Dyke and south of McNichols. It was annexed in 1916, and the south end was redeveloped as part of the Chrysler Lynch Road Assembly Plant in 1928.
   Kenwood: Developed in 1891 where Highland Park and Hamtramck met. Kenwood was a stop on Grand Trunk Railroad in 1895. After being annexed in 1907, it was redeveloped for several industrial firms.
   Maybury: The area was south of North Detroit and east of Van Dyke. It started in 1888 and was named for William C. Maybury, a popular congressman who became Detroit's mayor. It was annexed in 1915.
   These four Detroit neighborhoods are among those described by Livonia author Gene Scott in a book that inspired a museum display drawing suburban visitors.
   Source: "Detroit Beginnings: Early Villages and Old Neighborhoods."

Connections: Metro Detroit Neighborhoods
The 100-foot-long exhibit will be displayed at Alger Hall at the Detroit Historical Museum through Sept. 1.
The exhibit features historical information about 17 Detroit neighborhoods and 11 suburban communities.
The exhibit is open Tuesday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for college students and $2.50 for students and seniors. Wednesdays are free.
The exhibit is based on Gene Scott's book, "Detroit Beginnings: Early Villages and Old Neighborhoods." To order the book, send a $12 check or money order to Gene Scott, 8861 Utah, Livonia, MI 48150
Source: Detroit Historical Museum


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   LIVONIA -- The history of Livonia, once known as the cheese capital of Michigan, stretches into the 1800s, even though the community has only celebrated 52 years as a city.
   Livonia Township was established in 1835, but settlers began arriving 11 years before. The area was a farming community and in the 1870s had three cheese factories. The City of Livonia was born in 1950.
   "Just because people didn't know about Livonia doesn't mean we didn't exist," said Sue Daniel, chairwoman of the Livonia Historical Commission.
   The story of Livonia's beginning is condensed and woven into an exhibit that also features 10 other suburban communities in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties and 17 Detroit neighborhoods.
   The exhibit, "Connections: Metro Detroit Neighborhoods," is on display at the Detroit Historical Museum through next year.
   The 100-foot display has vignettes about each community and pictures, maps and artifacts donated by area museums and historical societies. The exhibit will run through Sept. 1. There have been informal discussions about donating portions of the exhibit to the featured communities when the display it is over.
   Members of the Plymouth Historical Museum plan to visit the exhibit next month. Beth Stewart, director of the Plymouth museum, said she is excited about the possibility of having Plymouth's portion of the exhibit displayed in Plymouth.
   "It will be a way for little people like us to get a professionally designed exhibit," Stewart said. "The opportunity for it to end up permanently in our back yard is a great plan."
   Organizers said the exhibit is a way of showing Metro Detroiters how they're all related and why they should move past issues that pit Detroit and the suburbs against each other. At a time when several suburbs are fighting the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, the exhibit is a welcomed break, said Jill Grannan, curator of the exhibit.
   "We still obviously suffer from an inferiority complex in Detroit," said Grannan, curator of the exhibit at the Detroit Historical Museum. "Everybody learns something from (exhibits like this). If your town isn't represented, you probably knew somebody nearby. There are so many ways to show the connections."
   A book by Livonia author Gene Scott gave museum officials the idea to create the exhibit.
   After working on the committee that planned Detroit's 300th birthday celebration, Scott received a $3,000 grant funded by the committee and Comerica Bank to research the beginnings of some of Detroit's older neighborhoods.
   The book, "Detroit Beginnings: Early Villages and Old Neighborhoods," was published in 2001.
   The Detroit Retired City Employees Association sponsored the book, which was distributed to 500 Metro Detroit schools and libraries. Once the Detroit Historical Museum received its copy of the book last year, officials there decided to expand it to an exhibit including the suburbs, Grannan said.
   "It's the kind of project where after you're done, you're still learning things," said Scott, a retired public relations specialist for Detroit. "This is showing connections not just in historical ways but in very geographic ways. The city and much of it's suburbs are connected to each other."
   The Plymouth Historical Museum donated a Daisy air rifle for its portion of the display. The rifle originated in Plymouth in 1888 as a premium given to farmers who purchased an iron windmill from the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company, local historians said.
   Farmers eventually became more interested in the Daisy rifles than the windmills and the company produced 50,000 guns, according to local historians. By 1891, the company began turning a profit by selling the guns. In 1895, the company stopped selling windmills and changed its name to the Daisy Manufacturing Company.
   Other donated items include:
Pictures of the 1964 World Fair, which featured the "World's Largest Tire" as a ferris wheel two years before it was shipped to Allen Park on 22 truck beds.
Christmas books and catalogues from Dearborn's old Ford Rotunda, which served as the Ford pavilion for the 1933-1934 world fair. The Rotunda burned down in 1962.
Signed boxing gloves from boxing trainer Emanuel Steward, donated by the North Rosedale Park Players.


You can reach Shanteé Woodards at (734) 354-4049 or mailto:swoodards@detnews.com