The Way It Was
The Way It Was — Suwanee Steamboat
1958 For several decades, a favorite summer pastime for visitors at Greenfield Village in Dearborn was taking a ride on the Suwanee steamboat that...
The Way It Was — Navin Field
Of all the visitors who came to Detroit in the first half of the 20th century, perhaps none was more famous than the New...
The Way It Was — Trumbull General Hospital, 1967
The medical center opened in the 1940s and was one of several area hospitals that cared for Black patients then
The Way It Was — General Motors Co. Headquarters
1923One hundred years ago, General Motors Co. completed construction on its massive 15-story headquarters on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. It soon became an...
The Way It Was — Highland Park Market
1933 In the late 1800s, Syrian and Lebanese merchants began slowly filtering into Detroit. By the end of the Roaring Twenties, thousands of immigrants from Arabic...
The Way It Was — The Detroit Pistons at Olympia Stadium
1958 Sometimes sharing a space with another tenant just isn’t easy. For their first four seasons after moving from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Detroit in...
The Way It Was — Rosa Parks and a Friend at The Detroit Zoo
1948 A few of Southeast Michigan's cultural institutions have proven than the 125-acre Detroit Zoo in Royal Oak, which opened 95 years ago. One...
The Way It Was — Queen Elizabeth II On The Detroit River
1951 She reigned as the United Kingdom's Monarch for so long that it’s hard to think of her title as anything other than Her...
The Way It Was: Christmas Shopping in Downtown Detroit
1952 In today's mercantile world of Amazon, Wayfair, eBay, and other e-tailers, it’s easy to forget that shopping once meant a sensory experience, not just...
The Way It Was — Joseph Campau
1957 Looking south from the corner of Joseph Campau and Caniff, this photo shows Hamtramck’s main business artery, Joseph Campau, a busy hub...
The Way It Was — D.M. Ferry & Co.
1943Detroit once had a seedy reputation, but not in the derogatory sense. The city was home to the world’s largest seed company, D.M. Ferry...
The Way It Was — Detroit’s Changing Face
1959 If one had to assign a title to this image, “Detroit’s Confluence of the Old and New” would be as fitting as any. The...
The Way It Was – Michigan State Fair
Miss Michigan State Fair Lila Verslype poses with a calf called Playboy
The Way It Was – John Wayne, 1956
The Duke visited Detroit to crown the winner of the Miss Wayne pageant
The Way It Was — Detroit Grand Prix, 1982
The auto event was first held in the city 40 years ago
