Springwells Township

Springwells Township is a defunct civil township in Wayne County, in the U.S. state of Michigan. All of the land is now incorporated as part of the cities of Detroit and Dearborn.

Springwells Township was formed by an act of the territorial governor Lewis Cass on January 5, 1818, but the boundaries were not firmly designated until 1827. The township was named for the many natural springs in the area. Earlier, French explorers had named the area "Belle-Fontaine," French for "Beautiful Fountain." In 1815, the "sand hill at Springwells" was the site of the signing of the Treaty of Springwells, which was attended by future U.S. President William Henry Harrison.

In 1842, the U.S. Army began construction of Fort Wayne at the Detroit River, now listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Divided many times, by the 1850s Springwells Township bordered Detroit to its east, Greenfield Township to its north, Redford Township to its northwest, Dearborn Township to its west, Ecorse Township to its south, and the Detroit River to its east.

According to the research of author Richard Bak, there was a series of unsolved deaths in the 1880s that occurred under suspicious circumstances. These events have gone largely forgotten, but stand amongst Wayne County's greatest unsolved crimes of all time.

On February 14, 1927, Village of Dearborn residents voted to become a city. The following year on June 12, 1928 voters approved consolidation of the City of Dearborn (population 9,000), City of Fordson (population 33,000) and part of Dearborn Township consolidated into the City of Dearborn. On January 9, 1929 Clyde M. Ford was elected as the first mayor of Dearborn. The Historic Springwells Park Neighborhood was established in 1939 by Edsel B. Ford to provide company executives and auto workers with upscale housing accommodations.

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