You’d be hard pressed to name a thoroughfare in any American community that has meant more to a city than Woodward Avenue has to Detroit. The 27-mile, eight lane road, which runs from the heart of downtown Detroit to the city of Pontiac going northwest, is the locale for four star restaurants, professional sporting events, entertainment venues, and some of the most renowned museums anywhere.

Woodward has a long and colorful past which was actually laid out hundreds of years ago by Native American tribes who used what they called the “Saginaw Trail” to move goods from the Detroit River to points north, south and west. In 1701, French explorer Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac established Fort Ponchartrain du Detroit on the banks of the river. The fort eventually evolved into the settlement of Detroit. The British took control of Detroit in 1760 before ceding it to the United States as a result of the Revolutionary War in 1783, although the British did not relinquish control until 1796.

The city of Detroit was a relatively small establishment, when in 1805 a devastating fire broke and wiped out most of what is now downtown. Determined to rebuild the city, civic leaders like territorial governor William Hull, and Chief Justice Augustus Brevoort Woodward, called on the federal government to provide funding to remake Detroit.

With Judge Woodward taking the lead, the plans were to fashion the rebuilt Detroit based on the ideas of Charles L'Enfant, who was best known for designing the cities of Paris and Washington D.C. Woodward’s plans called for a hexagon pattern, circuses, wide boulevards and five major avenues that extended from Detroit in differing directions. Although renamed several times, one of the avenues would bear the judge's name by 1807.

Early plans called for Woodward to be a very wide thoroughfare but, lacking the cooperation of many landowners along the route, it was only 66-feet wide when completed. By 1824, Governor Lewis Cass extended Woodward all the way to Pontiac to facilitate travel for settlers arriving to take advantage of the public land sales. Travelers along Woodward encountered surfaces of 16-foot planks, cedar blocks, gravel, ruts, water-filled holes, mud and horse droppings. It was about this time that the city first installed toll booths to help cover the cost of improving the avenue.

From 1848 –1895, the maintenance of many of the region’s streets were handled by private companies as government officials were unable to satisfy the demand for better roads. The private companies would plank or corduroy the highways and charge tolls to users at city limits.

By the 1890s, Woodward Avenue reflected Detroit's growing prosperity, driven by the lumber and stove industry. The street was lined with thriving department stores, jewelers and furriers. Every day at noon, a ball would drop from a staff atop the Wright, Kay & Co. jewelers building on Woodward, and Detroiters could check their watches. The C.R. Mabley department store would host pie-eating contests and high-walking exhibitions on a wire stretched across Woodward. Saturday was payday, and Woodward Avenue stores like B. Siegel's, Kern's, Partridge & Blackwell's, R.H. Fyfe & Co., Rothman's, and Sanders kept late hours. After 1866, Detroiters could buy a glass of the first soda pop made in the United States, at James Vernor's drugstore on the southwest corner of Woodward and Clifford.

Woodward Avenue in the 1890s, looking north from downtown

In 1909, responding to demand for smoother roads by bicyclists and early auto owners, the first mile of concrete highway in the world was laid by Wayne County between Six and Seven Mile Roads in Greenfield Township (present-day northwest Detroit). Constructed in less than three months at a cost of $13,493, the new roadway construction technique attracted international attention, as its advocates claimed concrete more durable, cleaner and easier to maintain than former methods.

By this time, because of its history of hard goods fabrication such as railroad cars, carriages, engines and stoves, Detroit was positioned to respond to the advent of the automobile industry and Woodward was the city’s production hub. The area and its resources encouraged the initiation of many automobile companies, as well as scores of businesses that supplied auto parts and accessories.

"One hundred auto companies grew up on Woodward," said Debbie Schutt, an urban planner and byway coordinator for the Woodward Avenue Action Association. "They may not all have been long-lived, but they were established companies with the intent of building automobiles. Industrial mass production was birthed here and that really changed America.”

The "Big Three" automakers all had their roots along Woodward Avenue. Henry Ford, for instance, built his first car at his home, just four blocks west of Woodward.  The Model T was born in a secret room at the Piquette Plant, two blocks east of Woodward. And in 1910, Ford moved his auto operations to the Highland Park Plant known as the Crystal Palace on Woodward.

By 1921, General Motors relocated its headquarters to the Albert Kahn-designed office complex on Grand Boulevard, one block west of Woodward. Five years later, its Oakland Motor Division introduced its new Pontiac line and GMC Truck and Coach, at a facility located at the end of Woodward Avenue in the city of Pontiac.

In 1925, the newly-founded Chrysler Corporation located its headquarters three blocks east of Woodward at Colorado and Oakland Streets in Highland Park.

In 1916, the entire 27-mile length of Woodward Avenue was paved and, in 1919, the first three-color traffic light in the nation appeared on the thoroughfare. Traffic on Woodward by this time was so heavy the Michigan Legislature approved the widening of Woodward to 200 feet providing an eight-lane avenue that stretched from Six Mile Road to Pontiac. In 1920, the convergence of Woodward and Michigan Avenue was touted as the nation's busiest intersection with 18,000 cars passing through it within a 10-hour period. By the late 1930s, Woodward was known as one of the busiest streets in the nation. Along with cars, transportation modes included interurban lines, railroads and streetcars.

Woodward Avenue became a beneficiary of the great expansion of wealth generated primarily by the auto industry. The corridor attracted such businesses and retailers as Vernors, Sanders, Winkleman's, S.S. Kresge Co., F.W. Woolworth Co., and Hudson's. Businesses thrived as trolleys and taxis carried shoppers and the curious up and down the avenue. Magazines reported, "43 percent of Detroit's wealth lies along Woodward Avenue."

By the 1930s, magnificent homes and ornate churches were being built on or adjacent to Woodward. In fact, at one time part of the avenue was known as "Piety Hill" because of the number of churches lining the street. Besides mansions, new housing developments also sprang up along Woodward from the heart of Detroit all the way to Pontiac.

Downtown skyscrapers dominated Detroit's skyline and cultural institutions like the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Public Library, and Detroit Zoological Park established themselves along this historic corridor. Lavish entertainment venues like the Gem and Fox Theatre, which at the time of its completion in 1928 was the second largest theatre in the world, rose up on Woodward.

This photo of Grand Circus Park, looking north up Woodward in 1935, clearly shows the design the city's early planners had in mind

The spotlight was clearly on Woodward in June of 1963 when 125,000 people took part in a civil rights march led by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. While in Detroit, King delivered an earlier and more elaborate version of his renowned "I Have a Dream" speech delivered at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.

In the 1950s and 1960s, "Woodwarding" became the craze as teenagers discovered the thrill of taking the family car out for a spin along the avenue from Ferndale to Pontiac. Cruisers gathered at drive-in restaurants, such as Ted’s Drive-in at Square Lake Road in Bloomfield Hills and the Totem Pole drive-in restaurant at Ten Mile Road in Royal Oak.

Also popular on Woodward were muscle car competitions which had its heyday in the mid-1960s. Eventually, Woodward Avenue’s reputation for being the top venue for viewing cars of all styles grew. Journalists took note of the phenomena sending correspondents from Car and Driver magazine, Motor Trend Magazine and CBS World News to cover the spectacle, which ceased in the 1970s. However, in 1994, the idea of cruising the Woodward strip took a quantum leap with the advent of the Woodward Dream Cruise. Today, the “Cruise” is touted as the world's largest celebration of car culture, attracting more than 1.5 million people from around the world and 40,000 cars.

While the players along the avenue have changed over time, Woodward has been the spine of Detroit for over 200 years.

"I guess if I had to take somebody who had never seen Detroit, I'd start at the river and drive straight up Woodward. I can't think of a more expedient way to show the city," said Jerry Herron, historian and director of the honors program at Wayne State University.

In recognition of its historical significance, Woodward Avenue received a well-deserved badge of honor when it was designated as a Michigan Heritage Route in 1999. In 2002, Woodward Avenue was designated a National Scenic Byway. The Byways Program "recognizes a distinctive collection of American roads, their stories and treasured places. They are the heart and soul of America.”

To convey the heritage, culture, and story of Woodward Avenue and its significance as one of America's Byways, the Woodward Avenue Action Association has developed the Woodward Tribute Project, an interpretive signage program. The project calls for the erection of 20-28 Tributes along Woodward Avenue from the Detroit River to Pontiac, symbolizing Woodward's unique history - from manufacturing, automotive, music, culture, labor – and images reflective of these stories will be depicted in the 30-foot glass and concrete pillars along the roadway. Placing a Tribute every half mile or so from the Detroit River to Pontiac is the goal of the Woodward Avenue Action Association and it is hoped that the public artworks will keep tourists coming to the strip all year, not just during the annual summer Woodward Dream Cruise.

The first planned Tribute will be located in Ferndale.  The theme is Byway Band, reflecting Woodward Avenue's cultural and automotive heritage. The Tribute will be lit for the first time on September 18, 2008. For more information about the Tribute program, go to www.woodwardavenue.org.

For more information about other historic roads in Michigan, go to www.motorcities.org.