 
Hudkina
Member
Username: Hudkina
Post Number: 20
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 7:21 pm: |    |
I wonder if the people of Farmington Hills would bitch about being called Farmington... |
Danny
Member
Username: Danny
Post Number: 6097
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 7:49 pm: | |
And the City of Independence wants to merge with Independence TWP. |
Danny
Member
Username: Danny
Post Number: 6098
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 8:00 pm: | |
Here are some other failed kept up Townships that have been absorbed by Detroit:
Hamtramck TWP. The rest of Gratiot TWP. leaving the last 2 1/2 mile TWP to become Harper Woods, Springwells TWP. A piece of Ecorse TWP., Dearborn TWP and Redford TWP. and all of Greenfield TWP.
There were two a small villages Fordson and Dearbornville. Fordson was located on Ford Rd. and Schaefer HWY and Dearbornville was located on Dix and Vernor HWY. both were well kept up villages but couldn't fight the annexation of Dearborn so these two villages were absorb into City of Dearborn. |
Danny
Member
Username: Danny
Post Number: 6099
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 8:04 pm: | |
Henry Ford's plan for a late 19th century of Greenfield Village was named after the Greenfield TWP and it one time had a village.
Also Ford has a plan to have all of Dearbornville, City of Dearborn and Dearborn TWP. to be annexed to Detroit if they don't meet his demands. Ford got what he wants and the three areas weren't being annexed to Detroit. |
Saruthma
Member
Username: Saruthma
Post Number: 52
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 10:06 pm: | |
Oakland University, whose property spans Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills has a Rochester mailing address with the zip-code 48309. Contrary to the earlier post, there are also areas of Rochester Hills that have the 48309 zip-code (ex: the faculty sub-division East of Adams).
What's interesting is that at some point the Dodge/Wilson family petitioned/paid for a Rochester mailing address... that would have been when the farm straddled Avon and Pontiac Twp, right? Anyone know the story regarding that? |
Joebrazier
Member
Username: Joebrazier
Post Number: 4
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 3:32 pm: | |
Can we refer to these unincorporated places as Hamlets? This word seems to capture the essence of their existence... |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 465
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 5:01 pm: | |
Found a list of lost Hamlets and failed towns for Wayne Co.!
http://www.geocities.com/michd etroit/oldtown.html |
Alan55
Member
Username: Alan55
Post Number: 297
Registered: 09-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 5:56 pm: | |
In the 1820's and 30's George Washington was idolized, almost worshipped. That is the origin of Washington Township, the unicorporated village of Mount Vernon by Stoney Creek Metropark, and also the unincorporated village of Disco (a contraction of "District of Columbia"). |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 492
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 6:06 pm: | |
Thanks Alan for the explanation, especially regarding Disco. I had found it hard to believe the good people of 1825 were anticipating the rise of Donna Summer and the Bee Gees.
Joebrazier, I agree, "hamlet" is a perfect description. |
Abracadabra
Member
Username: Abracadabra
Post Number: 32
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 10:50 pm: | |
Does anyone have information on this area, currently in Redford?
Map of Southwestern Hwy & Fordson Hwy Redford, MI 48239, US |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 468
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 11:12 pm: | |
Go to the archives and search for Title of Article Imperial Hwy. We had a discussion on a never built Hwy in MAcomb which ran at a angle like those roads and almost seemed to line up with the angled Imperial Hwy in Redford. I would give a link but I have NO CLUE how to do it. Someone showed me how to do the link but I didnt get it to work.... |
Jimaz
Member
Username: Jimaz
Post Number: 2451
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 11:37 pm: | |
https://www.atdetroit.net/forum/mes sages/91697/100453.html |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 469
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 12:41 am: | |
Where do you get the numbers after messages??? |
Dannaroo
Member
Username: Dannaroo
Post Number: 76
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 9:14 am: | |
Hudkina said:
quote:If Royal Oak TWP hadn't been carved up into its current myriad of suburbs it would have had a population of 193,440 in 2000. In the 1960's and 70's the population was closer to 300,000.
I was skeptical so I looked up the census tracts that lie within what would be the original boundaries of Royal Oak Twp and you are indeed correct. The population of those tracts was still above 200,000 as recently as the 1990 Census.
Regarding townships - My dad once told me that many of the townships in the thumb area/SE Mich (I grew up in Casco Twp in St. Clair County) are actually slightly larger than 36 square miles because the chains that the original surveyors used had a few extra links in them. Does anybody know if there is any truth to this? (I know that if you look at a map of Oakland County, the northern western border of Independence Twp extends about 1,000 feet further north than its neighbor Groveland Twp) |
Missnmich
Member
Username: Missnmich
Post Number: 600
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 10:02 am: | |
Anyone know anything about a former community in Wayne County known as Howlett? I believe it was in Springwells Twp.
And what is the story on the strange shape of Dearborn Hts? |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 494
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 10:07 am: | |
Actually, Dannaroo, the townships are all slightly smaller than 36 square miles because of the curvature of the earth. My father in law has a very old plat map of Macomb County that has a fairly detailed explanation of this.
So it is completely common that the north-south boundary lines of townships do not match up. East-west you don't have the same problem. This is why many of the north-south roads have slight jogs in them every few miles. |
Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg
Post Number: 970
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 10:48 am: | |
If you look closely, surveying errors are evident in many places where the corrections had to be made up. The normally square-mile sections in the northern tier of Troy and Sterling townships are actually 1.12 miles long north-to-south. Next time you drive between Square Lake Rd. and South Blvd, check your odometer. |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 470
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 10:58 am: | |
Slop in surveying is usually put to the north or east end of townships. While surveying a culmination of bad measurements would be thrown in when noticed in townships. The eastern most twps in Macomb are actually almost 6.5 miles E/W. You can see corrections as well in the N/W part of Macomb where the northern boundary for bruce is very angled. N/W Oaklands northern boundary also shows this. The reason many main roads along section lines dont line up or used to not line up before they were fixed is because of sections not lining up. If you know what a section corner is (usually under a small round cap if its in a road) some section corners have 3 or 4 section corners. Because each section has its own and through re-monumentation they establish other corners that property is described off of in that particular section. Most of the nonaligned section lines where roads have slight jogs are more often along township lines. |
Joebrazier
Member
Username: Joebrazier
Post Number: 5
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 5:42 pm: | |
I spent most of my childhood in the hamlet of Rose Center, which houses the Rose Township offices and a couple of churches. We had Holly mailing address and schools though. |
Yaktown
Member
Username: Yaktown
Post Number: 185
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 9:57 pm: | |
Being a map geek, I love this thread! I too grew up in Union Lake. You can always tell someone's age when they say they live/grew up in Union Lake. It's sort of a badge of honor. Nowadays, they say Commerce/Waterford/White Lake. UL still has an actual post office, I think the ZIP is 48387. I recall about 15 years ago when the USPS was phasing out the use of UL as a residential mailing address, there was quite the uproar. Someone even went so far as to propose that Union Lake should incorporate as a city. Thankfully, that never happened. |
3alarm
Member
Username: 3alarm
Post Number: 7
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 11:52 pm: | |
i once road my bike to disco when i was 14, just because we saw the name on the map and coud not believe such a funky place could exist, and on the way we found the huge banked ford proving ground track a few miles south... holy crap what a discovery! |
3alarm
Member
Username: 3alarm
Post Number: 8
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 12:01 am: | |
but, and additional thing about the survey slop stuff, isn't 8 mile road also the state line between wisconsin and illinois?
|
Abracadabra
Member
Username: Abracadabra
Post Number: 36
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 12:22 am: | |
Is there an online resource for old maps of Wayne County somewhere? |
Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg
Post Number: 980
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 8:24 am: | |
3alarm,
Not exactly. The latitude at I-94 and 8 Mile Rd. is 42.4507 degrees while the latitude at I-94 and the WI-IL State Line is 42.4947 degrees. That means the WI-IL line is 0.044 degrees further north. One degree of latitude equals about 69.2 miles, therefore the WI-IL State Line is about (69.2 x 0.044) = 3.04 miles further north, which means it is closer to matching up with 11 Mile Road. |
Hornwrecker
Member
Username: Hornwrecker
Post Number: 1819
Registered: 04-2005
| | Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 1:05 pm: | |
There are some links to old maps of Macomb county, and others at this site:
http://shelbyhistory.tripod.co m/id2.html
I've got other links, but it might take some time find them. |
Zephyrprocess
Member
Username: Zephyrprocess
Post Number: 431
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 1:27 pm: | |
Even though there is 0.044 degrees error, it was intended that 8 Mile be the same "base line" as the Wisconsin/Illinois state line. |
Hawthorne
Member
Username: Hawthorne
Post Number: 31
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 1:39 pm: | |
Great thread. Thanks for all the posts.
When I lived in the City of Oak Park from 1968-1976, it was considered part of the Detroit Post Office. You could address letters either with Detroit or Oak Park. It was zone 37 of the Detroit P. O. while the area of Detroit immediately south of Eight Mile was zone 35. When ZIP codes went into effect, Oak Park was 48237 and the 482xx zip code was for Detroit. Of course, this has nothing to do with the legal status of the city, which is located in Southfield Township, Oakland County and never has had any legal connection with the City of Detroit. |
Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg
Post Number: 985
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 2:30 pm: | |
quote:Even though there is 0.044 degrees error, it was intended that 8 Mile be the same "base line" as the Wisconsin/Illinois state line.
I do not profess to be an expert on surveying, but I have a reproduction of an 1895 Atlas that includes an article titled "Meridians and Base Lines". In accordance with the "Rectangular System" established in 1785, when setting up a region to be controlled, a Prime Meridian is first established through astronomical observation and then a Base Line is established perpendicular to it. According to the accompanying diagram, the Base Line in MI was established perpendicular to the "Michigan Meridian" and the one separating WI and IL appears to have been established perpendicular to the "4th Principal Meridian", which is close to the Mississippi River.
Unfortunately, the article does not indicate the method to be used for selecting the latitudinal location for the intersection of the Base Line. In any case, it seems clear that the Base Lines are secondary to the Prime Meridians and there would be no extra effort expended to make the Base Lines of adjacent regions line up exactly with each other. |
Jimaz
Member
Username: Jimaz
Post Number: 2480
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 4:50 pm: | |
Fareastsider's post #469:quote:Where do you get the numbers after messages??? If you're asking how I made that thread link, I just searched for the article as you suggested then right-clicked the search result then selected "Copy Shortcut" then pasted it into the post.
Historical surveying errors were also mentioned in another thread but the search engine is failing with an "Internal Server Error" at the moment.  |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 699
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Friday, November 30, 2007 - 12:55 am: | |
Anyone ever hear of a town called quakertown in the former Farmington Twp. I remeber seeing it in more than one map over the years, as well as another time besides that and Farmington in Farmington Twp. I do not remember the name of the other town. I have not come across any other reference to these towns if they existed. They were not shown as CDPs or Hamlets but as actual towns |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 922
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Friday, November 30, 2007 - 1:28 am: | |
There is no such thing as a "town" in Michigan, nor has there ever been. There are townships, cities and villages, nothing else. So anything inside a township would have to be a city or a village, or else it is just an unincorporated place, a spot on a map. |
Cmubryan
Member
Username: Cmubryan
Post Number: 487
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 30, 2007 - 7:41 am: | |
"Of course, this has nothing to do with the legal status of the city, which is located in Southfield Township, Oakland County and never has had any legal connection with the City of Detroit"
Oak Park is and always was in the original ROYAL OAK TOWNSHIP. Southfield Twp starts west of Greenfield Road and goes to the east side of Inkster Road.
BTW..it's interesting how so many of our roads are named after the city or original township they went through. Just within Southfield, you have Greenfield Rd, Southfield Rd, Franklin Rd, Inkster Rd. |
Novine
Member
Username: Novine
Post Number: 297
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Friday, November 30, 2007 - 9:59 am: | |
Quakertown and Wood Creek Farms were villages that incorporated within Farmington Township before all 3 incorporated together as the City of Farmington Hills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F armington_Hills,_Michigan#Hist ory
I think both village incorporations dated back to the 50s so the villages weren't around very long before the incorporation of FH. |
Alan55
Member
Username: Alan55
Post Number: 802
Registered: 09-2005
| | Posted on Friday, November 30, 2007 - 10:21 am: | |
How about a campaign to change the name of the City of Westland back to its original name of Nankin Mills? Back when Westland Shopping Center was new in the 70s it was sort of OK to name a city after it, but now the name "Westland" seems corny and outdated. |
Novine
Member
Username: Novine
Post Number: 299
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Friday, November 30, 2007 - 11:29 am: | |
What cities were formed from Peking Township? Don't know if that would go over well with the general climate of China bashing these days.
"Canton, like Nankin and Peking townships were named after cities in China due in part to the enhanced trade relations the United States had with China at that time. Additionally, Washington D.C. had decreed that all new townships had to use names not previously used by another post office. Today Canton is the only township of the three that uses its original name." |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 2337
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, December 01, 2007 - 3:20 pm: | |
Erin Township disappeared when it became incorporated as the City of Roseville. Being part Irish, I'd love to see it revert to Erin. |
Trainman
Member
Username: Trainman
Post Number: 575
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, December 02, 2007 - 12:15 am: | |
We could annex all of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties into the city of Detroit.
Then we can all be one big happy family and all get along and work together to make our one city the best in the World.
We are the Motor City and that is why we already have the best mass transit system in then entire World. The car has won and bus has lost and no amount of tax increase can or ever will make our public bus system better. Unless we all care and work together to help those who cannot drive or are handicapped or are poor. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 4664
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, December 02, 2007 - 12:33 am: | |
Wisconsin has three types of local governing bodies (in addition to counties): towns, villages, and cities. There, a township is a surveying concept for property deeds, etc. |
Parkguy
Member
Username: Parkguy
Post Number: 162
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, December 02, 2007 - 11:07 am: | |
Alan55 wrote:
How about a campaign to change the name of the City of Westland back to its original name of Nankin Mills? Back when Westland Shopping Center was new in the 70s it was sort of OK to name a city after it, but now the name "Westland" seems corny and outdated.
I remember when Nankin Twp. became "Westland." When Hudson's and the mall developer announced the new shopping center, it was late on a Friday. Petitioners were on the streets in Wayne, Inkster, Livonia, and Nankin Twp. within a couple of hours, to get signatures to incorporate the area. The group in Nankin decided to go with "Westland" to point out the urgency and importance of the tax base from the mall, and the loss to the township if one of the other jurisdictions were able to annex it. I can remember my parents commenting about how stupid it would be to name the city after the mall, but they said that the plan was to change the name back to either Nankin or Tonquish as soon as the township was incorporated. Never happened.
On Monday morning, all of the jurisdictions were in line with signed petitions at the county or state offices, or wherever they had to be to call an election. Nankin was first in line, so here we are.
I have a copy of the photo essay book on the history of Wayne, which covers a barely-failed vote to annex all of Nankin Twp. in the early '60's.
(Message edited by parkguy on December 02, 2007) |
Hudkina
Member
Username: Hudkina
Post Number: 80
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, December 02, 2007 - 1:10 pm: | |
Southgate is another example of a city being named after a shopping center.
In the 1950's when the village of Allen Park incorporated into a city the only portions of Ecorse TWP that remained were the very southwestern corner and a small unpopulated island in the Detroit river. Not soon after Allen Park's incorporation, residents of the remaining portion of Ecorse TWP started a petition to incorporate as well. They decided to name the new city after the Southgate Shopping Center, an outdoor mall that had just recently been built in the township.
So in 1958 that small corner of Ecorse TWP incorporated into the city of Southgate, and the small island that was the only portion of Ecorse TWP left was annexed by the city of Wyandotte.
Ironically, while Southgate was near the southern edge of the metro in the 1950's, it is nowhere near it now. The southern edge is now located over 10 miles to the south along the Huron River. |
Treble484
Member
Username: Treble484
Post Number: 41
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Monday, December 03, 2007 - 12:14 am: | |
Dearborn Hgts shape was from the incorporation of the remainder of the old Dearborn Twp. The narrow strip connecting the north and south was annexed from the village of Inkster now also a city. |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 704
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Monday, December 03, 2007 - 12:40 am: | |
Personally I have always liked the names of Westland and Southgate. |
Hawthorne
Member
Username: Hawthorne
Post Number: 38
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 2:07 pm: | |
Cmubryan said, "Oak Park is and always was in the original ROYAL OAK TOWNSHIP..."
Of course, you're right. I must have been thinking about another question when I wrote Southfield Twp. Thanks for the correction. |
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