DETROIT (Fr. D'Etroit, strait), Mich., capital of Wayne County, in the southeast; larg est city of the State and of the entire Northwest to the Pacific; situated on the northwest bank of the Detroit River dividing the United States from Canada, one end fronting west of Lake Saint Clair and the other about 18 miles from Lake Erie. It is 88 miles from Lansing, the State capital; 284 from Chicago; 60 from To ledo, Ohio; 251 from Buffalo; and 291 from Mackinaw. Pop. estimated 950,000.
Detroit has the finest harbor on the Lakes; the river, on the city front, is often called "the Dardanelles of America.' The broad outlet of Lake Saint Clair, running west and dividing around Belle Isle, narrows to about half a mile and deepens to an average of 32 feet for some miles with a southwest course, before turning directly south, with a current of about two miles an hour. Fed by the Great Lakes, it has always a full stream, neither rising or sinking much, and is little disturbed by storms; and the largest vessels can lie up to the wharves. Here is built Detroit, extending some 11 miles along the river front, lined with wharves, elevators, foundries, factories, warehouses, railroad sta tions, freight depots, etc. Area, 80.70 square miles, but with well-built suburbs outside not yet incorporated; indeed, from Grosse Pointe at the northeast to Gibraltar at the south where Lake Erie begins, the whole river front for 30 miles is built up with handsome villages and lined with the summer villas of its wealthy business men, all really parts of Detroit. About three miles west of the centre of the city, commanding the channel, is Fort Wayne, an unfinished military post once intended to be the most formidable fortification in the Northwest, and still garrisoned and armed with batteries. Across the river in Canada are Windsor in the centre, the terminal of railroads, through Can ada, Walkerville on the northeast, Sandwich on the southwest and just below Sandwich is the site of the proposed city of Ojibway, the Canadian City of the Steel Trust.
The ground of Detroit is a gentle slope for 300 or 400 feet back from the river to 20 or 30 feet high; then sinks slightly, and again rises to about 50 feet, and 661 above the sea. The original plan, on a very small scale, was a series of concentric semi-circles, or rather seg ments of polygons, with the Grand Circus—a semicircular park of five and a half acres — as a centre, nearly a mile from the river, toward which they extended. This feature is still pre served; but all the new growth has been laid out in checkerboard system, relieved by a series of noble avenues, 100 to 200 feet wide radiating from the river. Jefferson avenue extends along it; Woodward avenue runs at right angles to it, dividing the city into halves and the Grand Circus into quadrants; west of Woodward are Michigan and Grand River avenues, at different angles, and east is Gratiot. Between the Grand Circus and the river is the Campus Martins, an open space about 600x200 feet, crossed by Woodward and Michigan ave nues, and from which start Monroe avenue and Fort street running toward Fort Wayne. The streets in the city are generally wide 50 to 100 feet —and in the residence dis trict well shaded and notably clean. The chief retail business is on Woodward avenue and the streets radiating from the Grand Circus and the Campus Martius. Griswold street, with the great banking houses, office buildings, etc., is the Wall street of Detroit; and others spreading from the Campus Martius and Grand Circus are of importance. The chief of the show streets is the Grand Boule vard, a macadamized parkway 150 feet wide and 12 miles long, encircling the heart of the city in a vast sweep from Belle Isle bridge at the east to the river at 26th street. The outer portions of all the great avenues mentioned, of Lafayette avenue and of Fort street, are full of fine residences; and a notable residence district clusters around Woodward avenue as it stretches toward Palmer Park.