Beautiful Ravenswood

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Beautiful Ravenswood Enabling roads Grand River Ave. retraces one of the seven or eight significant Indian trials that led to De’troit as the French called it, the city on the straits. It travels ZZZ miles from the City center through the Northwestern suburbs towards Brighton, Howell and ultimately parallels the Grand River before it flows through Michigan’s state Capital of Lansing. By the 1840’s The Old Grand River Indian trail was but a muddy, mucky pair of ruts that was often impassable for months out of the year. In the late 1840’s wooden plank roads were appearing in the U.S. and the General Plank Road Act of 1850 allowed private enterprises in Michigan to build plank roads provided they held to certain specifications. Roads were 16 feet wide of inch thick oak or pine with mandatory drainage ditches to each side. 1851 saw the incorporation of the Detroit-Howell plank road company which included such Detroit notables as James Couzens and Lewis Cass amongst its investors. The new 50 mile turnpike to Howell would later be connected to the Capital via the Howell-Lansing Plank road in 1852. Tollbooths were installed at intervals of every 5 miles along the oak planks and often lodging and taverns sprang up at these locations. Note: (The Grand River and Joy Road intersection is exactly 5 miles Northwest of Woodward.) Tolls collected at these locations were xx $ per mile and interestingly many hamlets sprung up around these predecessors to the on-ramp. Some of these towns still survive today as suburbs and cosmopolitan municipalities. Towns like Redford, Farmington, Novi, Howell and Brighton all were stops along the Detroit – Howell – Lansing plank pikes. Today one coach stop, the Botsford Inn in Livonia at Grand River and Mi... ... middle of paper ... ...still did a booming business and it was feasible to do all your shopping within a short walking distance. Small businesses flourished at the intersection of Joy and Grand River at this time. Delicatessens, drug stores, dimes stores, barbers, butchers and grocers all set up shop in this district that was growing denser by the day. The neighborhood was becoming so packed that it even had its own hook and ladder company the XXX at 8xxxx Grande River...192X would see the opening of the magnificent Riviera movie palace that could seat 2xxxx patrons per show. So great was the demand that the Rivera Annex was built just one block away to handle the overflow. To put this into context the first talking motion picture, The Jazz Singer was released in October 1927. These were boom times in America’s third largest city and the masses were looking to be entertained.

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