 
Motorcitydave
Member
Username: Motorcitydave
Post Number: 71
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - 3:50 pm: |    |
Ok, this may be a silly question, but I always wondered if there were (100+ years or so ago) any inland lakes within the current city limits of Detroit (or near by) that were filled in at some point for development.
It seems that there would have to have been a couple at some point in history (given the amount of natural spring fed lakes we have)... or even some rivers/streams, etc.
Anyone know? |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 534
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - 4:17 pm: | |
good question....I doubt it but hey with some of the puddles in Oakland Co that they call lakes perhaps there was one or two small ones somewhere. |
Danny
Member
Username: Danny
Post Number: 6349
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - 4:19 pm: | |
Henry Ford once have a his summer place at Nakin Mills. His home is still there today located on Beechwood St. next to the first ever K-Mart store. His summer cottage was next to a lake. When the future site build housing was planned, Ford ordered his engineers to drain the lake next to his summer cottage. Once the lake is gone site built housing will begin next to the Village of Garden City. The Village of Garden City broke away from Nakin Mills and became a city. |
Raptor56
Member
Username: Raptor56
Post Number: 38
Registered: 05-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - 6:03 pm: | |
I don't know about lakes, but there used to be canals criss crossing the city. Infact, the De La Salle High School "Pilots" were named after the adjacent Conner Creek's river boat pilots and not after airplane pilots as you would assume since the school was located nextdoor to City Airport. |
Ventura67
Member
Username: Ventura67
Post Number: 150
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - 8:52 pm: | |
Detroit and most of the extreme southeast part of the state was under Lake Erie less than 10,000 years ago, so the land is very flat with a gentle slope toward the existing lakeshore making it impossible for natural lakes to form. Since the soil is basically fine lake sediment though the manmade ponds that have been created in Detroit's southern rural areas have sandy bottoms and very clear water. Ever heard of Heath Beach? YaHoo!!! It was dug out to make an overpass with US 23 and it filled in with groundwater. Not sure were the topless part comes in on that, though.
The lakes north and west of the city are moraines created as the receding glaciers left rockier, hillier land and the potholes that became the abused lakes we now have. |
Treble484
Member
Username: Treble484
Post Number: 25
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - 11:07 pm: | |
The Square House built by Henry Ford was originally in the area of Ford Rd and Southfield. It was on his fathers farm. He built it for his wife Clara (Bryant) shortly after they married. |
Novine
Member
Username: Novine
Post Number: 47
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - 11:44 pm: | |
If I recall correctly, there's only one or two natural lakes in all of Wayne County. |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 536
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - 11:49 pm: | |
Lake Saint Clair and Lake Erie! |
Hudkina
Member
Username: Hudkina
Post Number: 38
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 2:52 am: | |
Are the lakes near Northville natural or man-made? |
Gazhekwe
Member
Username: Gazhekwe
Post Number: 12
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 8:20 am: | |
Newburgh Lake on Newburgh near Plymouth is part of the Rouge. It's an impoundment, created by damming the Middle Rouge River in the early part of the last century.
From waynecounty.com:
The lake was originally constructed as a millpond around 1819. In 1935 the old mill was demolished by Henry Ford and replaced with a new "Village Industry Plant". A new dam was also built by the Wayne County Road Commission as a cooperative venture.
Some of the buildings are still there at Newburgh south of Plymouth, and the lake was cleaned up around 2000. It has a beautiful park. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 3023
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 11:20 am: | |
quote:The lakes north and west of the city are moraines created as the receding glaciers left rockier, hillier land and the potholes that became the abused lakes we now have.
Technically, moraines are the linear, hilly deposits left behind by the receding glaciers. The lakes to the northwest of Detroit are "kettle lakes", formed when blocks of ice calving from the front of a receding glacier become partially-to-wholly buried by glacial outwash.
Ventura67 is otherwise correct. This is why you really don't see any hills in Southeast Michigan until you hit the moraines just east of Ann Arbor.
Apologies for the nerdiness. I took a semester of process geomorphology at U of M. One of the coolest classes I had. |
Mikem
Member
Username: Mikem
Post Number: 3440
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 11:53 am: | |
The old water reservoir at Dequindre & Wilkins. |
Keystone
Member
Username: Keystone
Post Number: 263
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 11:54 am: | |
Not (yet) filled in, don't forget about Lake Muskoday, Lake Okonoka, and Lake Takoma. All are entirely within the City of Detroit boundaries. |
Raptor56
Member
Username: Raptor56
Post Number: 40
Registered: 05-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 12:04 pm: | |
Urban lakes Belle Isle... lol |
Goblue
Member
Username: Goblue
Post Number: 254
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 8:09 pm: | |
Without any real knowledge I would bet that some of the rivers running through what is now the city might have had small dams put in place by farmers that produced not real lakes but some back waters...or earlier, beavers might have built dams on some streams. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3594
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 8:18 pm: | |
From what I know Detroit's original terrain was flat overall but fairly rolling with quite a few streams leading into the larger bodies of water. The best place to see a pre-development example of Detroit is Elmwood Cemetery. I don't know about any inland lakes in what is now the city. I doubt that there would be anything more than some shallow ponds or marshes, because nobody goes around filling in lakes that are several feet deep, let alone a serious lake that is 50 or 100 feet deep. I don't think there were any of those in the low plains close to the seaway. |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 1809
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 9:14 pm: | |
Grand Circus Park used to be a marshland, probably had some small ponds way back when. It was the source of the Savoyard River, long filled in. But that would have been in the very early 1800s. |
Novine
Member
Username: Novine
Post Number: 49
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 12:15 am: | |
"Are the lakes near Northville natural or man-made?"
Are you thinking of near the Wayne-Oakland border? I think at least one of the lakes is a spring-fed lake and is considered "natural". I believe the others were formed from gravel mining. |
Abracadabra
Member
Username: Abracadabra
Post Number: 59
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Friday, August 17, 2007 - 5:46 am: | |
Danny is right, HF's honeymoon cottage still stands, not to be confused with 2171 Iroquois in Indian Village. The green historical marker reads :
Henry Ford and Clara Bryant were married on April 11, 1888. Soon afterwards, construction of this house, known as both the Honeymoon House and the Square House, began in Dearborn. Ford built the one bedroom house himself using timber cut and sawed at his sawmill. The specifications for the kitchen, sitting room, parlor and bedroom were provided by his bride. Later, Ford added his workshop, where he often experimented with gasoline engines. In 1891 the Fords left this house for Detroit where Ford's career as an automaker began. They kept the house as a summer cottage until 1937. Ford then gave it to a friend Robert Smith, now known for his soybean research. After the Fords died, the land on which the house stood was acquired by Ford Land Development Corporation. Smith was told to move the house or tear it down. He moved it here on the anniversary of Ford's birthday, July 30, 1952. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
But I don't know anything about the lake, and would love more information.
As far as the Northville lakes, I'm pretty sure that Crystal Lake, Curtis Lake, and Swan Harbor Lake were from the gravel quarry (bet. 6 and 7 mile and Haggerty and Northville Rd.), where most of the other small lakes were mill ponds attached or branched off of the river. |
Novine
Member
Username: Novine
Post Number: 50
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 12:27 am: | |
I would have thought the same about the Northville Lakes. But I was sure I had read that there were at least one or two natural lakes in the Northville area. But just reading a thread about Crystal Lake, a Northville resident confirmed that it was formed from gravel mining. So references online to it being a natural lake appear not to be true. |