Highland Park

History

The area that became Highland Park began was a small farming community on a large ridge at what is now Woodward Avenue and Highland, north of Detroit. In 1818, prominent Detroit judge Augustus B. Woodward bought the ridge, and platted the village of Woodwardville in 1825. The development of the village failed. Another Detroit judge, Benjamin F. H. Witherell, son of Michigan Supreme Court justice James Witherell, attempted to found a village platted as Cassandra on this site in 1836, but this plan also failed. In 1907, Henry Ford purchased just north of Manchester Street between Woodward Avenue and Oakland Street to build an automobile plant. Construction of the Highland Park Ford Plant was completed in 1909, and the area's population dramatically increased in 1913, when Henry Ford opened the plant's first assembly line. The village of Highland Park was incorporated as a city in 1918 to protect its tax base, including its successful Ford plant, from Detroit's expanding boundaries. In 1910, Highland Park, then a village, had 4,120 residents. Between 1910 and 1920 during the boom associated with the automobile industry, Highland Park's population grew to about 46,500, reaching its peak around 1927. The growth of Highland Park and neighboring Hamtramck broke records for increases of population; both municipalities withstood annexation efforts from Detroit. In 1925, Chrysler Corporation was founded in Highland Park. It purchased the city's Brush-Maxwell plant, which would eventually expand to 150 acres and serve as the site of the company's headquarters for the next 70 years. Arthur Lupp of Highland Park founded the Michigan branch of the Black Legion in 1931; it was a secret vigilante group related to the Ku Klux Klan, which had been prominent in Detroit in the 1920s.…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of , all land. Highland Park is approximately north-northwest from Downtown Detroit. It is bounded by McNichols Road (6 Mile Road) to the north, Grand Trunk Western Railroad Holly Subdivision tracks to the east, the alleys of Tuxedo and Tennyson streets to the south, and the Lodge Freeway and Thompson Street to the west.

Race & ethnicity