Glimpses of Detroit's Riverfront History

Stone 1:
St. Aubin Park Riverwalk
Glimpses of Detroit's Riverfront History

This walk made possible by:

Friends of Partners
Detroit Recreation Department
Dedicated July 1969

Stone 2:
The Many Names of Detroit
1880: City of the Straits (Major Great Lakes Port)
1920: Motor City (Automotive Capital of the World)
1963: Motown (Center of American Popular Music)
1980: The Renaissance City (Gateway to 21st Century)

Stone 3:
The Shipyard
Starting in 1852, this site was a busy shipyard. The Detroit Dry Dock Co. and later Detroit Shipbuilding Co., built and installed the steam engines and performed finish work on hulls produced at the Wyandotte shipyard. In 1890 the shipyard employed 600 boilermakers, machinists, shipfitters, carpenters and other tradespeople.

Stone 4:
Immigrant Workers
Detroits riverfront industries and the automobile plants depended on immigrant labor. In 1910, three out of four people in Detroit were immigrants or children of immigrants. They came from a dozen nations, including Germany, England, Ireland, Canada, Russia and Poland. The immigrant population almost tripled over the next 20 years.

Stone 5:
"I have taken my people out in the roads and in dark places, and looked at the stars of heaven and prayed for the southern man to turn his heart."
-Benjamin Singleton, a Black man who guided runaway slaves through Detroit to Canada in the 1850's.