History of Detroit

The city of Detroit, the largest city in the state of Michigan, settled in 1701, is the first European settlement above tidewater in North America. Developing from a small sleepy New France fur trading post, it became a world-class industrial powerhouse and the fourth largest American city by the mid 20th century. In colonial times, with the city located on the opposite end of Lake Erie from the first 17th century North American colonies, it was first settled from the French Kingdom's New Orleans colony vice Montreal (founded 93 years earlier) after the Beaver Wars left the southern shores of Lakes Erie and Huron in the hands of the ever-hostile and powerful League of the Iroquois. After a devastating fire in 1805, Augustus B. Woodward devised a street plan similar to Pierre Charles L'Enfant's design for Washington, D.C. Detroit's monumental avenues and traffic circles fan out in radial fashion from Campus Martius Park in the heart of the city, which facilitates traffic patterns along the city's tree-lined boulevards and . Main thoroughfares radiate outward from the city center like spokes in a wheel.

The region grew initially based on the lucrative inland and Great Lakes connected fur trade, in which numerous Native American people had important roles. The Crown's administration of New France offered free land to colonists to attract families to the region of Detroit and the population grew steadily, but slower than English private venture funded colonies, for there was a much smaller European population base reproducing and attracting relatives. During the French and Indian War (1756-1763), the French reinforced and improved Fort Detroit (1701) along the Detroit River between 1758–1760, and it became the focus of several British and American attacks.

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