Woodward Avenue

Woodward Avenue (also designated M-1) is a north–south state trunkline highway in the Metro Detroit area of the U.S. state of Michigan, commonly called "Detroit's Main Street," running from Detroit north-northwesterly to Pontiac. The name Woodward Avenue has become synonymous with Detroit, cruising culture, and the automotive industry. Since 1805, it has bound the city through dire challenges and moments of glory, serving as not only a transportation corridor but also a nexus for social activities, fostering industrial innovation and production as well as becoming the location of monuments and landmarks. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has listed the highway as the Automotive Heritage Trail, an All-American Road in the National Scenic Byways Program; it has also been designated a Pure Michigan Byway by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), and was included in the MotorCities National Heritage Area designated by the U.S. Congress in 1998.

Origins and Naming

Woodward Avenue was created after the Great Fire of 1805 in Detroit and followed the route of the Saginaw Trail, an Indigenous trail that linked Detroit with Pontiac, Flint, and Saginaw. The Saginaw Trail connected to the Mackinaw Trail, which ran north to the Straits of Mackinac at the tip of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Named after Augustus Woodward, the first Chief Justice of Michigan and architect of the Detroit city plan after the fire of 1805, it was one of the first two roads built after the fire, laid out to roughly follow the Native path dubbed by settlers as the Saginaw Trail.

The street bears the name of Augustus B. Woodward, a judge who led the city of Detroit beginning in 1805, during Michigan's early years as a territory; Woodward was appointed by President Thomas Jefferson to manage the territory. He wanted to create a "Paris of the West" out of a burnt-down town and bleak community. Woodward Avenue is one of the five principal avenues of Detroit, along with Michigan, Grand River, Gratiot, and Jefferson avenues — all platted in 1805 by Judge Augustus B. Woodward.

In the age of the auto trails, Woodward Avenue was part of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway that connected Portland, Maine, with Portland, Oregon, through Ontario in Canada. Woodward Avenue is considered to be the divider between the East and West sides of the city of Detroit.

Engineering and Infrastructure Firsts

Woodward Avenue holds a remarkable collection of American firsts in transportation history. On April 20, 1909, Woodward Avenue in Detroit made history when it became a paved road — over the years, it has been described as the "world's first concrete highway." The road construction, carried out by Wayne County, included one mile between Six Mile Road and Seven Mile Road, and cost $1,400 to construct, which included about $1,000 in state funds.

Another transportation first was the three-color stoplight, installed at Woodward Avenue and Fort Street in 1920. The avenue is also home to other American firsts: the first road where a ticket for street racing was written (March 1895), and possibly the first ice cream soda mixed by Sanders.

A 1915 feasibility study commissioned by the city examined a subway beneath the avenue, but investigation showed Detroit was "peculiarly a city of individual homes" and the low population density couldn't support a subway. In 1926, a four-line subway system encompassing 47 miles of lines was proposed at a cost of $280 million. By 1929, plans were scaled back further; the plan submitted to voters included one line of 13.3 miles interconnected with the city's streetcar system, but the bond proposal failed by a 2:5:1 margin that year, killing any proposal for a city subway system in Detroit.

When the Detroit United Railway consolidated existing companies in 1900, it offered 187 miles of local and more than 400 miles of interurban lines, including the journey over Woodward Avenue to Pontiac. With motor buses and private automobiles providing more service, the streetcars started to lose money and were out of action by 1956. More recently, the city, along with a handful of private investors, built a three-mile trolley along Woodward called the QLine.

Route and Landmarks

Woodward Avenue starts at an intersection with Jefferson Avenue next to Hart Plaza about 750 feet from the Detroit River. The first block of Woodward Avenue, between Jefferson Avenue and Larned Street, is a pedestrian plaza — the Spirit of Detroit Plaza — home of the namesake statue used to symbolize the city.

Woodward Avenue runs north-northwesterly away from the river through the heart of downtown Detroit and the Financial District. Along the way, it passes several important and historic sites, including notable buildings like One Woodward Avenue, the Guardian Building, and The Qube. Further north, Woodward Avenue runs around Campus Martius Park and enters the Lower Woodward Avenue Historic District, a retail, commercial, and residential district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).

The highway crosses to the west of Comerica Park and Ford Field, home of Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers and the National Football League's Detroit Lions, respectively. Woodward passes the historic Fox Theatre before it crosses over I-75 (Fisher Freeway). North of the freeway, M-1 passes Little Caesars Arena, home of the National Hockey League's Detroit Red Wings and the National Basketball Association's Detroit Pistons.

South of I-94, Woodward heads through the Cultural Center Historic District, which includes the campus of Wayne State University, the Detroit Public Library, and the Detroit Institute of Arts; the institute and the nearby Detroit Historical Museum showcase the city's automotive history. North of I-94, Woodward passes through New Center, a district home to Cadillac Place, the former headquarters of General Motors.

Between the intersections with Webb Street/Woodland Street and Tuxedo Street/Tennyson Street, Woodward Avenue leaves the city of Detroit for the first time and crosses into Highland Park, an enclave within Detroit. M-1 runs next to the historic Highland Park Ford Plant, home of the original moving assembly line used to produce Model Ts; opened in 1910, the plant's assembly line dropped the time needed to build a car from 12 hours to 93 minutes and allowed Ford to meet demand for the car.

Overall, Woodward Avenue extends 27 miles from Detroit's riverfront north to the city of Pontiac, taking in communities such as Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, Birmingham, and Royal Oak, among others. In 2021, the Michigan Department of Transportation's traffic surveys showed that on average, 68,359 vehicles used the highway daily south of 14 Mile Road in Royal Oak — the highest count along the highway.

Commercial and Cultural History

Woodward Avenue's central position made it the natural spine for Detroit's commercial life from the city's earliest decades. In 1866, Hervey Parke joined Dr. Samuel Duffield in a small drugstore at the corner of Gratiot and Woodward avenues, with George Davis stepping in the next year; Duffield eventually departed, and Parke-Davis and Co. became for a time the world's largest pharmaceutical company. When James Vernor returned to Detroit from the Civil War, he opened a pharmacy at 235 Woodward Ave. and resumed experiments interrupted by the war — the result was Vernor's ginger ale, otherwise known as "Detroit's Drink."

According to Woodward Avenue: Michigan's Main Street by Susan Whitall, over "one hundred auto companies grew up on Woodward." The Big Three — Ford, GM, and Chrysler — were included in those auto companies and fully established themselves not far from this central road. The avenue served as the original spine of the region's car industry, with Ford, Chrysler, and GM plants located close to the road at different points in time.

The architecture of modernism anchors the built environment of Woodward Avenue, including the Ford Highland Park Plant, Temple Beth El, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Public Library Main Branch, the Detroit Historical Society, and the Fox Theater — all built between 1900 and 1928.

Woodward Avenue has also played a profound role in Detroit's social and political history. The June 1963 march in Detroit was, at the time, the largest civil rights demonstration in U.S. history, with 125,000 marching down Woodward Avenue. On June 23, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., along with Detroit church leaders, Mayor Jerome Cavanagh, and UAW President Walter Reuther, led the march down Woodward Avenue to protest unequal treatment of Black people both around the country and in Detroit. The group marched for nearly a mile down Woodward Avenue to Cobo Arena, where King delivered refrains similar to the "I have a dream" portion of his famous speech given two months later at the March on Washington.

The Woodward Dream Cruise

Founded in 1995, the Woodward Dream Cruise is the world's largest one-day automotive event. Each year, over one million enthusiasts and 40,000 classic cars from around the globe converge on Metro Detroit, transforming it into a vibrant celebration of car culture.

Pamela S. McCullough, Mayor, and Nelson House, a plumber from Ferndale, came up with the idea for the cruise in 1994 to help raise money for a children's soccer field in his community. Organizers initially expected 30,000 or 40,000 people to come to the August 19, 1995, inaugural cruise on Woodward Avenue in Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, Berkley, Huntington Woods, Royal Oak, and Birmingham — but about 250,000 showed up. It is now the largest single-day classic car event in the world, and brings in over $56 million annually to the Metro Detroit economy.

The Woodward Dream Cruise spans much of the avenue: classic vehicle drivers cruise through nine participating communities — Pontiac, Bloomfield Township, Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, Royal Oak, Berkley, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, and Ferndale — in Oakland County, Michigan. The majority of the cars on display are those that were available and popular during the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s, prior to the OPEC oil embargo. In recent years, automakers that once "unofficially" tested their cars along Woodward in the 1960s have used cruise events like the Dream Cruise to showcase their latest vehicles, meanwhile providing significant financial support.

Prior to the organizing of the Dream Cruise, residents of the west side of Detroit and the western Detroit suburban communities had been cruising Woodward Avenue since the 1940s; the ad hoc cruising caused traffic jams on many summer evenings, automobile accidents, and included many cruisers drinking and driving. The formalized Dream Cruise ended those problems while preserving the tradition of Woodward's cruising culture. In 1957, a Michigan historical marker was erected at the Woodward Avenue site on the grounds of Detroit's Palmer Park.

See Also

• Michigan Highway M-1
• Saginaw Trail
• Highland Park Ford Plant
• Detroit Institute of Arts
• Campus Martius Park
• QLine