The specific location of Detroit and the later developed River Rouge was so advantageous as it was situated between the iron ore of the upper peninsula and the coal mines in the eastern American states. With such accessibility to these raw materials, the development of manufacturing was surely inevitable, thus making manufacturing inseparable from the history of the City of River Rouge.
Before the area transitioned from farmland to a factory-sustaining city, it passed through several stages of growth. What was once a footpath that travelled along the Detroit River became part of the oldest highway in Wayne County. First coined “River Road,” today River Rouge citizens know this as West Jefferson Avenue. Less than a miles south of the Rouge River, “Dearborn Road,” a military highway that lead to an early arsenal for the United States, intersected with “River Road.” The old “Dearborn Road” was later renamed Schaefer Highway, which is known as Coolidge Highway within the proper limits of River Rouge.
As the area developed along with the rest of the state, fifty-four square miles of the Michigan territory outside of Detroit were established as Ecorse Township. Michigan officially became a state 10 years later, but it wasn’t until 1899 that River Rouge followed suit and became officially incorporated as a village. River Rouge changed from village to city years later on April 3, 1922.
(Historical Information and Above Photo Courtesy of “A History of River Rouge, Michigan” by Frances E. Manor)