Detroit Boxer Joe Louis' Place in American History

Joseph Louis Barrow was best known as the "Brown Bomber." He boxed from 1934 until 1951 and reigned as heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949. Joe was born in Chambers County, Alabama--the seventh of eight children. Both of his parents were children of former slaves.

Louis' family moved to Detroit after a brush with the Ku Klux Klan when Joe was twelve. The Louis family was part of the Great Migration after World War I. His family settled on 2700 Catherine Street in the now defunct neighborhood of Black Bottom. When old enough, Joe and his older brother worked at the Rouge Plant for the Ford Motor Company.

During the Great Depression, Joe spent time at a local youth recreation center at 637 Brewster Street in Detroit and made his boxing debut early in 1932 at the age of seventeen. In 1933, Louis won the Detroit-area Golden Gloves Novice Division. In 1934, he won the Chicago Golden Gloves championship and later that year became the United States Amateur Champion in a national AAU tournament in St. Louis, Missouri. By the summer of 1934, Joe had gone pro with a management team.

In 1936, Louis got a title shot versus world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling in Yankee Stadium. The German trained hard while Louis seemed more interested in his golf game--his new hobby. Schmeling knocked Louis out in the 12th round handing Joe his first professional loss. Schmeling became a national hero in Nazi Germany as an example of Aryan superiority.

Max Schmeling and Joe Louis rematch.

No path to a rematch was open to Louis until June 22, 1938. Louis and Schmeling met for a second time at Yankee Stadium before a crowd of 70,043. The fight was broadcast worldwide in English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. It should be noted that Max Schmeling was not a Nazi, but the Nazi party propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels hyped the match proclaiming a Black man could not defeat Herr Schmeling.

The American press promoted the match as an epic battle between Nazi ideology and American democratic ideals. Louis became the embodiment of anti-Nazi sentiment. After the big media buildup, the fight lasted only two minutes and four seconds. Schmeling went down three times before his trainer threw in the towel ending the match. For the first time in American history, every Black person and White person in the country celebrated the same event at the same time. Not until the end of World War II would that happen again.

Joe Louis became the first African-American national hero. He reigned as heavyweight champion from 1937 until 1949--longer than anyone else. In 1951, Louis was beaten by Rocky Marciano and retired from the ring. The following year, he was responsible for breaking the color line integrating the game of golf. He appeared as a celebrity golfer under a sponsor's exemption at a PGA event in 1952. How many people know that?

Joe Louis and Max Schmeling

Joe Louis died on April 12, 1981 of cardiac arrest at the age of sixty-six in Desert Springs Hospital near Las Vegas after a public appearance at the Larry Holmes-Trevor Berbick heavyweight battle. President Ronald Reagan waived eligibility rules for Joe Louis to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors on April 21st. His funeral was paid for by his friend Max Schmeling, who also acted as a pallbearer.

In his professional boxing career, Joe Louis won virtually every boxing award there is and was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously in 1982. The City of Detroit honored Joe Louis with a monument on October 16, 1989. The sculpture was sponsored by Sports Illustrated magazine and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

 

When drivers look left at Woodward Avenue from eastbound Jefferson Avenue (now a No Left Turn), they are confronted with a colossal fist and forearm suspended from a triangular superstructure--a testament to the regard and respect Detroiters hold for their hometown hero.

Link to the Joe Louis/Max Schmeling 1937 heavyweight fight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LNzWHuygpw

Detroit Time Capsule Anthology

After a decade writing 500 Fornology posts, I'm proud to announce the publication of my fifth book Detroit Time Capsule, which is a collection of seventy-five of my re-edited, best Detroit posts including significant historic moments, biographies of people who left their mark on the city, and memories of media personalities in the early days of Detroit television.

Detroit Time Capsule is a trip down memory lane, which should resonate with nostalgic Baby Boomers and contemporary Detroiters with a taste for learning their town's rich history and heritage.

This anthology makes a great holiday gift for readers who have an interest in easy to digest Detroit history. Most chapters are not tied by a narrative thread and can be read in three to five minutes.

And finally, I want to acknowledge Detroit/Ypsilanti photographer Chris Ahern for his striking photograph of the Monument to Joe Louis, aka The Fist (1986) by Robert Graham.

Detroit Time Capsule Amazon site

Detroit Pitchman Ollie Fretter

Ollie Fretter

Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1923, Oliver "Ollie" Fretter moved with his parents to Royal Oak, Michigan when he was in his early teens. He graduated from Royal Oak Dondero High School in 1941. After serving in the military during World War II, Fretter borrowed $600 from an uncle to open an appliance repair shop.

By 1950, twenty-seven-year-old Ollie Fretter decided he may as well sell home appliances and consumer electronics. With the post-war G.I. Bill and Veterans' Administration funding boom, America moved from a nation of renters to a nation of home owners. Selling appliances and electronics was a forward-looking career move for Fretter. His first store opened on Telegraph Road, north of I-96 in Redford, Michigan. Within ten years, Fretter had eight Detroit area stores.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Fretter Appliance and Electronics ran print ads in all of Detroit's major newspapers. The ads ran on Mondays to advertise mid-week Wednesday sales and on Fridays to generate weekend sales. The ads featured photos of appliances with the "Lowest Prices in Town" listed beneath them. Fretter's headshot was prominently displayed near his slogan, "If I can't beat your best deal, I'll give you five pounds of coffee."

Typical Fretter Appliance Print Ad

An unidentified Fretter employee revealed to a Detroit Free Press reporter, "Fretter gave away about 200 pounds of canned coffee a month costing about $500. When coffee prices rose, Fretter ordered one-pound cans of coffee with the label Fretter's House printed on them listing the weight as five-pounds. Somehow, Fretter got away with it. The cans became gag items that most customers were good-natured about. My guess is these short-weight coffee cans would be valuable collectors' items today if any have survived.

In 1971, Ollie Fretter increased his advertising budget and shifted into television advertising. He starred in his own commercials projecting a hokey, amateurish charm 40 or 50 times a week over most small market TV stations. His ads ran in the afternoon and late nights when buying television time was cheaper than prime time.

At first, Ollie Fretter played it straight as an owner/pitchman, but to distract his potential customers from the mind-numbing repetition of his commercials, he began hamming it up with all sorts of silly promotions like dressing as various characters. Sometimes, he would appear as a Gypsy violist, a mountain man, George Washington on President's Day, Uncle Sam on the Fourth of July, Johnny Cash, or Mother Nature. He would do almost anything to sell a refrigerator, a vacuum cleaner, a television, or a stereo system.

Ollie Fretter became Detroit's King of Local Advertising despite newspaper columnists ridiculing him in their editorials. He cried all the way to the bank. When Detroit Free Press reporter James Harper asked Fretter why he appeared in his own commercials, he replied, "People like to think they're dealing with the owner of a business. A too professional approach is not good. People like to think they're listening to somebody just like them."

In May of 1980, Michigan Attorney General Frank Kelley brought a $25,000 lawsuit against Fretter Appliance and Electronics for violating the Item Pricing and Deceptive Adverstising Act. The company's media advertising and signs that hung in their chain stores proclaimed "The Lowest Prices in Town." Ollie Fretter and his lawyers failed to provide documented evidence to backup that long-held claim.

Fretter updated his company's advertising by making the products the focus. An off-screen announcer described the appliances and electronics featured that week. At the end, Fretter's image was superimposed over the products with him saying, "The competition knows me, you should too." The new approach reflected the loss of Fretter's consumer protection lawsuit and the increasing competition from Highland Appliance.

But there was also a new threat--the big box appliance stores popping up along the retail horizon. Advertising had gone from cute to cutthroat. By offering lost leaders (items retailers sold at a loss) big box stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, and Sam's Club undersold their competition. Fretter rolled the dice and took his company public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1986 to raise capital and expand into new markets to compete nationally.

Fretter's long-time competitor Highland Appliance filed for Chapter 11 bankrupcy in 1992. It owed its creditors $241 million dollars. Best Buy saw an opportunity and stepped in to fill the retail void by opening six big box stores in the Detroit area by the end of 1993.

Fretter bought up his biggest competitor Silo Electronics, but Silo hadn't posted a profit since the early 1980s. Fretter assumed Silo's debt and lack of liquid assets but expanded into more states anyway. The bottom dropped out of consumer electronics market due to stiff competition and falling stock values. Fretter spread his assets too thin and banks refused to lend him any more money. By 1995, all Silo Electronics stores closed, with all Fretter stores closing by the end of June 1996. Ollie retired after forty-six years in the retail business.

Fred Yaffe, president of the advertising agency that handled the Fretter account from1992 until 1995, noted, "It wasn't any one thing that killed Fretter's business. It was a bunch of things that all happened at once. He had serious competitors with deeper pockets, constant price wars in the appliance and electronics industries, and a lack of new products like VCRs and handheld video cameras."

Oliver "Ollie" Fretter lived out his life in Bloomfield Hills and died at Beaumont Hospice on June 29, 2014 at the age of ninty-one. He was survived by his wife of sixty-five years Elma M., his adult children Laura and Howard, and his grandchildren Alexandra, Andrew, and Catherine.

"Ollie's Ooop" Sale (1979) 

Docuartist DeVon Cunningham--a Detroit Art Treasure--has Left this Vale of Tears

DeVon Cunningham and his partner Rose Johnson

Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on February 21, 1935, DeVon Cunningham began his art training at the tender age of eleven when he won a scholarship to the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis, Indiana. Part of his training was a two-week, all expenses paid seminar to study in Italy.

He continued his art training at the Detroit Center for Creative Studies and the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center. Cunningham went on to complete a bachelor's degree from the Detroit Institute of Technology and a master's degree from Wayne State University.

While he was working as a community outreach and public relations executive for Detroit Edison, DeVon was painting. Over his long career, DeVon's paintings have appeared in many galleries including eleven one-man shows, and his work hangs in many private and public art collections. His work is digitally archived and indexed in the catalog for the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute.

In 1969, DeVon Cunningham achieved national recognition when he painted the mural of the Black Christ on the dome of St. Cecelia Catholic church at Livernois and Burlingame in Detroit. This work featured a twenty-four-foot, brown-skinned image of Jesus with six multiethnic angels beside him serving high mass. The church's parishioners were mostly African Americans from the neighborhood. The mural was a welcomed addition to this French Romanesque church built in 1930 before the ethnicity of the neighborhood changed.

A national controversy erupted when the mural appeared on the cover of Ebony magazine in March 1969. Twenty-five years later on December 25th, 1994, the mural once again became the topic of controversy when the New York Times featured the church mural on Christmas Day. Reverend Raymond Ellis, rector of St. Cecelia's, responded to the criticism in a Detroit Free Press interview.

"Black parishioners have a legitimate complaint when they walk into a church to worship and everything is white. Christianity forces people to accept Western European culture.

"The historical Christ was Hebrew, a Jew from the Middle East. He might have had dark skin; he might have been fair. But Christ is the head of the church, he is God, and he is any color people want him to be."

Cunningham's commissioned portraits of prominent Detroit community leaders include Martha Jean "The Queen" Steinberg, a WCHB radio personality active in Detroit's African American community; Coleman Young, the city's first black mayor; Abe Burnstein, Detroit's reputed Purple Gang boss during Prohibition; and many others.

The most mysterious portrait Cunningham has painted is of Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. It was unveiled at Gordy's Boston-Edison mansion as a birthday present from his sister Anna Gordy Gaye--the wife of singer Marvin Gaye. Berry was quite moved and lauded the painting of him dressed up like Napoleon. Somewhere along the line, someone suggested that it might not be a compliment to be compared to Napoleon, and the painting disappeared. (More on that story appears in the link at the end of this post.)

Cunningham's portraits gave way to what he calls docuart that informs, instructs, and involves the viewer. His work combines symbolism with cultural iconography that leaves the viewer with a montage of images to ponder. DeVon's art not only appeals to the eye but also to the mind.

DeVon's jazz musician series typifies much of his later work. Historically, Detroit was instrumental in the 1920s through the 1950s for providing African American jazz and blues musicians venues to perform and make a living through their music. To document the historic relationship of Jews and African Americans, Cunningham painted legendary performers like Theolonius Monk, Louie Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Miles Davis, who performed in Detroit's legendary nightclubs owned by Jewish impresarios who hired Black acts when other venue bookers would not.

Billie Holiday docuart

 

DeVon Cunningham has produced significant art that remains relevant in our changing times. The Spill the Honey foundation commissioned a series of paintings that emphasizes the shared legacy of Jewish people and African Americans seeking historical truth and social justice through educational and artistic programs. The theme of Cunningham's last body of work deals with the environment and the pollinators--both endangered.

Mr. Cunningham passed away at 1:00 am Monday morning, July 31st at the age of eighty-eight after complications from a prolonged illness. Only two weeks before, DeVon and Rose Johnson went to Cafe D'Mongo's in downtown Detroit for his last outing where he enjoyed meeting with some of his fans, my wife Sue and I among them.

Berry Gordy's Lost Portrait

 

Fornology Blog Reaches Two-Million Hits

Doing a radio interview in Ypsilanti, Michigan (2016).

I began writing my Fornology blog in April of 2011 in support of my full length books found in the left and right sidebars. All of my 535 posts have been free from the start to anybody who cared to read them. Each post is a mini-history covering Detroit and Southeastern Michigan topics about important historical events including notable personalities, both famous and infamous. 

Because of the regional subject matter of my writing, I thought my audience would be well-defined, but I was wrong. As I was approaching this personal milestone of two-million hits, I took a look at my All Time analytics to see what the statistics revealed. 

First, my Fornology blog is fourteen and a half years, so I'm no overnight success, but my blog's growth has been steadily growing. Second, what surprised me is that just over half of my total hits are from the United States. That's one-million, three-hundred thousand hits, mostly from Detroit and Michigan. It turns out that just under half of my total hits are international.

The top five countries that comprise my All Time audience are:

1. The United States - one-million, three-hundred thousand hits - mostly from Detroit and Michigan.
2. Singapore - one-hundred, twenty-three thousand hits.
3. Hong Kong - sixty-nine thousand hits.
4. Brazil - sixty-three thousand hits.
5. Russia - fifty-three thousand hits.

Why and how so many people from around the world are reading my blog posts, I wish I knew. But it pleases me that they do. When it comes to the free exchange of ideas - the more, the merrier.

For anyone interested! My top five All Time posts are:

1. Detroit's Greektown Stella - seventy-one thousand hits.
2. Ottawa War Chief Pontiac Attacks Fort Detroit - forty-three and a half thousand hits.
3. Alex Karras (Detroit Lion) and Dick the Bruiser's (Pro-wrestler) Detroit Bar Brawl - thirty-one and a half thousand hits.
4. Detroit's Liquid Gold - Vernor's Ginger Ale - twenty-three and a half thousand hits.
5. Detroit's Baby Boomer Kids' Show Hosts - twenty-one thousand hits.

A heartfelt thank you to my core domestic audience and to the many Facebook share sites that have allowed me to distribute my writing and reach so many people worldwide.

Diana Lewis--WXYZ-TV's Grande Dame of Detroit Nightly News

Diana Lewis

Thirty-four-year-old Diana Lewis burst onto the local Detroit television news scene when she was chosen to co-anchor the 5:30 pm, Channel 7 Action News with bombastic Bill Bonds. Detroit Free Press television critic Bettelou Peterson wrote that "Diana Lewis comes across with strength to balance Bill Bonds' strong personality. She might have overwhelmed the more easy-going Jac Le Goff or John Kelly, Action News' other nightly news anchors." Finally Bonds met his match.

"It was amusing to watch Bonds and Lewis the first week they teamed for Channel 7's new 5:30 pm newscast. Bill knew he had tough competition and wasn't about to give Diana too much room. I don't think he actually looked at her once. He tossed her cues by saying "Diana" while looking resolutely straight at the camera," Peterson wrote.

To promote the 5:30 pm newscast, WXYZ-TV Channel 7 ran daily 3/4 page ads in the Detroit newspapers launching the team of Bonds and Lewis. Over a short time, they became more comfortable on-air together, and within a year, they were the news team to beat in the local Nielsen ratings race competing head-to-head against Channel 4's Mort Crim and Carmen Harlan, and WJBK-TV Channel 2's Joe Glover and Beverly Payne.

***

Diana Lewis did not follow a lifelong ambition to be a television newsanchor. She grew up Diana Robinson in Coatesvill, Pennsylvania. After her schooling, she worked as a psychiatric social worker at Emreeville State Hospital working with troubled youth and as a public special education teacher at Scott Intermediate High School. Both experiences prepared her for the job she was destined to have co-anchoring with Bill Bonds.

In 1968, Diana Robinson's stepfather showed her an article in the Phildelphia newspaper. Phildelphia's WPVI-TV Channel 6 needed a part-time, assistant producer for a program named Black Book about issues that were important to the Black community. The next day, Ms. Robinson asked her students if they thought she should apply for the job. The next thing she knew, Diana was filling out an application.

The moment that changed her life occurred while writing a script and preparing for an appearance of author Maya Angelou. Just before the broadcast, Angelou cancelled because she wasn't feeling well. Diana went to the producer and asked what they were going to do.

"Kid," he said, "you're on!" That was the first time she had appeared on camera, and Diana realized she was good at it. "That day, I claimed my voice, so help me, to be a voice for the people."

Diana was long married to Glen Lewis, a sound editor for Paramont Pictures and Universal Pictures. They had two daughters, Donna and Glenda. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1974, so Diana could take a job with KABC-TV as a consumer investigative reporter. She began using her married name professionally--Diana Lewis.

After two years beating the pavement in Los Angeles for KABC-TV, Lewis received a phone call from a young, unknown actor/screenplay writer named Sylvester Stallone. He told Lewis he liked her investigative reporting. "I like your no-nonsense, hard edge. That's what I'm looking for."

"Looking for what?"

"Someone to play a TV reporter in a film I'm making."

The film Rocky premiered in 1976 in time for the United States Bi-Centennial Celebration. Playing herself in the film, the director placed an Afro wig on Lewis' head and pointed her toward the cameras. She interviewed Rocky Balboa, a washed-up pug, as he tenderized a side of beef hanging in a packing house. The scene has since become one of the most memorable sequences in film history.

WXYZ-TV program director Phil Nye had hired Lewis when he worked in Los Angeles. Now he was the top programing person at Channel 7 looking for someone who was confident and could handle co-anchor Bill Bonds, who had his difficult on-air moments. Lewis had a levelheaded, calming influence that counterbalanced Bonds. The pair developed mutual respect for one another and dominated Detroit local news for many years.

One year into their run, the early 5:30 pm broadcast came in strong in the Nielsen ratings attracting the biggest audience of women 18 to 49 years old, the demographic advertisers love most. Men were watching too. Bonds and Lewis drew about 37 percent of the viewing audience the first time ratings data was available for the 5:30 pm Action News. The following year, the ratings were 44 percent, almost twice as much as Channels 2 and 4 together. Newspaper TV critic Chris Stoehr dubbed Bonds and Lewis the "King and Queen of Local Newscasts."

Bonds and Lewis

 

By August 1977, Lewis hosted her own daytime show called AM Detroit where she tackled controversial issues of the day. Market research found that viewers felt she was too abrasive and aggressive for a morning audience of housewives. The station wanted her to be more likeable and less threatening, so they softened Lewis' hair, makeup, and wardrobe.

One good thing about working for Channel 7, each of the anchors had a yearly clothing allowance. In a behind the scenes interview with Channel 7's News Director Phil Nye, he explained the station's dress code. "The station pays for the news team's clothing, mostly purchased from Gwynn's in Birmingham. Bob Gwynn makes clothes to order for each reporter and anchorperson. Diana is an absolute pleasure to work with because she is dynamic. As for Bonds, he's a paradox; he swings from wild to conservative.... We don't want the clothes to upstage the content of the program. Their clothes should be subdued but stylish and fairly conservtive."

Detroit Free Press celebrity watchdog Bob Talbert, often publicly at odds with Bill Bonds, could not resist using Diana Lewis to bludgeon Bonds in his March 10, 1980 column. "You don't realize how good Diana Lewis is until you watch her take the lead anchor spot while Bonds is on vacation. You don't even notice Bonds is gone."

In 1982, The Detroit television market had no shortage of competent women co-anchors including Beverly Payne, Doris Biscoe, Kai Maxwell, Carmen Harlen, and Robbie Timmons. Diana Lewis' popularity and ratings led the field earning her a $500,000 three-year contract with a baby-blue Chrysler Imperial thrown in to sweeten the deal.

But when her contract was up in 1985, Lewis became the casualty of the contact wars when her contract was not renewed. Channel 7 once again raided Channel 2's talent pool and hired Robbie Timmons for the 5 pm newscast and Dayna Eubanks for the 11 pm newscast. Diana moved her family to Los Angeles, California, where her husband Glen was a film editor and sound effects man for Paramount and Universal Pictures.

Glen and Diana Lewis

One thing Lewis learned from her tenure with Bill Bonds was to land on your feet after a crisis. Lewis went national and took a position in October 1986 with CNN in Atlanta, Georgia, which lasted all of one week. "I didn't realize what a jolt it was going to be being a long-distance mother."

She didn't want to uproot her twelve-year-old daughter Glenda out of school in the middle of a term, and her twenty-year-old daughter Donna needed to finish college. Diana dusted off her SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card and took some television bit parts including reprising her role in Rocky 5.

After Lewis' three year absence, Channel 7 announced they would not renew Dayna Eubanks' contract. Eubanks and Bill Bonds had no on-screen chemistry and did not get along, so the station rehired Lewis in 1988 for an estimated $150,000 to co-anchor the 11 pm newscast and stop the ratings hemmoraging. Lewis admitted to the press that she missed the money and her celebrity status. She was happy to be back. Channel 7's public relations team did a hard sell advertising the on-air reunion of Bonds and Lewis.

Lewis (69) stayed with Channel 7 until her last broadcast on October 3, 2012. After forty-four years in television news, including thirty-five years at WXYZ-TV, Diana Lewis signed-off by addressing her audience for the last time, "To everyone at home, God bless you. Thanks so much for loving me. I love you back. Good night."

Diana Lewis hoped to retire and travel around the country with her husband, but soon after, Glenn Lewis developed memory loss and PTSD from two tours of duty as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam. Diana back-shelved her retirement plans to become his caregiver.

In the meantime, her brother, who was suffering from kidney disease, took care of their 101-year-old mother Doris Spann in Pennsylvania. When he died suddenly from heart failure, Lewis made the funeral arrangements and moved her mother to Michigan into the family home in Farmingham Hills. 

The Lewis women with family matriarch Doris Spann

Lewis and her daughters did the best they could, but when Diana's back went out while lifting her mother, Diana asked for help from ProMedica Hospice in Southfield. Something she vowed she would never do. Diana was able to keep her mother at home until she passed away in 2022 at the age of 103.

In a heartfelt interview on April 23, 2023, with Cambrey Thomas from Hour Detroit magazine, Diana Lewis (80) spoke about the toll of being a caregiver. "Taking care of an ailing person can tax one's spirit more than I ever thought possible. We need to normalize the conversation... to recognize that asking for help and support should not be seen as a sign of failure or weakness but rather as one of courage."

Without realizing it, Diana Lewis embodied what her longtime co-anchor Bill Bonds would say when he signed-off at the end of every broadcast, "Stay classy Detroit!"

Bill Bonds and Channel 7 Action News

Detroit's Nineteenth-Century Moonlight Towers

Newport, Rhode Island introduced the first gas street-lighting in America in 1803. Throughout the nineteenth-century, it was the preferred method of outdoor street illumination, but the system was expensive to install and each lamp had limited range. In the 1880s, electric carbon-arc lighting offered a relatively inexpensive alternative to coal-generated gas lighting.

Large municipalities who could afford them invested in moonlight towers to illuminate large expanses like parks and public squares. Each tower was crowned with six carbon-arc lights giving off 200 times more illumination than the most powerful incandescent light bulbs.

Because the "moonlight" was harsh, the arc-lights were mounted 175 feet high and lit up a circle with a radius of 1,500 feet.  Downtown nightlife became a new reality for many Americans who believed that general illumination drove criminals deeper into the shadows.

The lights buzzed loudly and dropped shreds of burning ash as the carbon electrodes burned quickly and had to be replaced nightly. The height of the moonlight towers made them difficult to maintain, so a counter-balanced "dumbwaiter" elevator system was soon developed to change out electrodes more efficiently.

Detroit winter street lit up by a moonlight tower.

Detroit had one of the most extensive moonlight tower systems in the country inaugurated in 1882. One-hundred and twenty-two towers were placed 1,000 to 1,200 feet apart. The entire system illuminated twenty-one square miles. By the turn of the century, most of the towers were replaced by incandescent lighting once the AC electrical grid was laid out. Detroit sold its towers to several small municipalities such as Grand Rapids, Michigan and Austin, Texas.

Austin moonlight tower.

In 1885, Austin, Texas was terrorized by a serial killer known as the Servant Girl Annihilator, who killed eight servant girls all attacked at night. The only night light Austin had in those days was moonlight, but when the evening skies were cloudy, Austin had no light at all.

Detroit agreed to sell thirty-one of their used moonlight towers to Austin. Over the years, the lamps have been refitted with modern mercury-vapor light bulbs which require much less maintainence than the crude carbon-arc technology. Seventeen of their original thirty-one towers--the last of the moonlight towers--are still in operation.

Austin city officials were ready to remove the towers by 1976, but they were too late. The moonlight towers were inducted into the National Registry of Historical Places. In 1993, the city dismantled and rebuilt each existing tower for a citywide Moonlight Tower Festival which began in 1995. Next time you are in Austin, Texas, behold some Michigan history.

Antoine Cadillac--Detroit's First Godfather

Bust of Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac

An expedition financed by the French monarch--King Louis XIV--and promoted by his Minister of Marine--Comte de Pontchartrain--appointed military man and soldier of fortune Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac as their agent to establish a fur trading post and fort in New France. In return, Cadillac was granted generous riverfront real estate. He envisioned a permanent French colony controlling the fur trade routes through the upper Great Lakes, with him at the helm.

Commander Antoine Cadillac led a fleet of 25 large canoes--with 50 soldiers, 50 empire builders, 2 Roman Catholic priests, and his 11-year-old son--on a 52 day trip westward from French-controlled Montreal to the western bank of a swift running river that connected Lac Erie with Lac St. Clair.

This site was chosen because it was the narrowest point of the strait--de troit--which is how Detroit earned its name. There was an eroded 40' clay bluff leading up from the river bank to a flat clearing. Once a fort was built on the plain, anything moving up or down the river could be seen and was in easy range of their cannons. This was a defensible position to discourage the British from taking control of the fur trade.

The empire builders arrived on July 24, 1701 and began work on a log fort Cadillac named after his benefactor--French Minister of Marine--Comte de Pontchartrain. Two days later, a mass was said in honor of Ste. Anne--the patron saint of France and mother of the Virgin Mary. After the service, the foundations for the church were laid. Catholicism had come to the wilderness.

Fort Pontchartrain contained a warehouse which doubled as a store. There were also two guard houses, Ste. Anne's Church, and about 15 houses within the fort. Lots could be no larger than 25 square feet and some were smaller.

In an official report about Detroit to his superior officers, Cadillac noted, "Especially attractive was the region that lies south of the pear-like lake to which they gave the name of St. Clair, and the country bordering upon that deep, clear river, a quarter of a league broad, known as Le Detroit.

"On both sides of this strait lie fine, open plains where the deer roam in graceful herds, where bear, by no means fierce and exceedingly good to eat, are to be found, as are the savory poules d'Indies (wild duck) and other varieties of game. The islands are covered with trees; chestnuts, walnuts, apples, and plums abound; and in season, the wild vines are heavy with grapes.

"Le Detroit is the real center of the lake country--the gateway to the West. It is from there that we can best hold the English in check."

French trade with the local Native American tribes went well for the most part. Cadillac encouraged the Ottawa, Pottawatomie, Miami, and Wyandotte tribes to cluster together in villages near the fort for protection from their mutual enemies--the Iroquois and the British. In total, Cadillac estimated that there were about 2,000 Indians in and around Fort Pontchartrain allied with the French.

In 1702, the first European baby born in Detroit was the daughter of Alphonse de Tonty, Cadillac's second-in-command. Not to be outdone, in 1704, the Cadillac's gave birth to Marie Therese, who became the first recorded baptism christened in Ste. Anne's Church registry.

Cadillac wanted the settlement to grow rapidly, but few if any unattached women were available to single men, so he proposed that christened Indian women be allowed to marry French settlers. The Jesuit priest strongly objected on moral and religious grounds, and the plan was soon rejected. This is likely the first official instance of discrimination in Detroit's long history.

In 1707, Cadillac began issuing farm grants, known as ribbon farms, to attract new settlers. These farms ranged from 200' to 1,000' wide and extended from the shoreline for 2 or 3 miles. Each farm had waterfront access. Many of Detroit's current street names derive from the original ribbon farm grant holders, for instance, Beaubien, Campau, Livernois, Riopell, Dequindre, and others. Cadillac plotted out 68 parcels. 

Cadillac acted like a feudal landlord requiring farmers to pay him an annual rent and a percentage of their grain to use the windmill he had built on the waterfront north of the fort. He was the mill's sole proprietor and could charge whatever he wanted. Renters were also required to work on Cadillac's farm for a specified number of days each year, making him a gentleman farmer.

To engage in any kind of trade, settlers had to pay a licensing fee and annual taxes. Cadillac grew rich by padding the fees and taxes and skimming off the top. When he withheld an allotment of imported brandy behind padlocked warehouse doors, it was discovered and reported that he was trading it to the Indians for beaver pelts. Cadillac defied a Royal decree not to provide liquor to the native population.

When complaints about Cadillac reached Montreal and Paris, King's Deputy Francois Clarembault went to survey the Detroit area holdings in 1708 and found they did not match Cadillac's reports. After nineteen days in Detroit, Clarembault returned to Canada and sent his findings off to France. In 1709, Count Pontchartrain wrote to Cadillac complaining that he showed "too much greed and little moderation in his dealings with the settlers."

In 1710, Cadillac was called to Quebec to answer charges against him brought by his detractors. The empire builder was acquitted of extortion and abuse of power charges, but he was removed from his post never to return to Detroit. The following year, Cadillac was promoted to the governorship of the Louisiana Territory.

Saint Anne's Church

Detroit’s Lindell AC - The Nation’s First Sports Bar

Johnny in front of the original Lindell Bar

In 1949, Greek immigrant Meleti Butsicaris with his sons—Johnny and Jimmy—leased the ground floor of the run-down Lindell Hotel and opened their bar on Cass and Bagley avenues. At first, they couldn’t afford to have a sign made with a different name, so they went with the hotel’s signage and called their tavern the Lindell Bar and the name stuck. The bar was near Briggs Stadium, where the Tigers and Lions played, and the Olympia arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings.

Legend has it that a young New York Yankee second baseman—Billy Martin—suggested to the brothers they change the drab atmosphere of the bar with an athletic theme. That would not be difficult. In addition to being co-owner of the bar, Johnny Butsicaris was also the official photographer for the Olympia. He had plenty of original sports photographs he could use. It was not long before sports memorabilia adorned the walls with autographed photos of Detroit sports stars, signed team jerseys, bats, and hockey sticks--even a jock strap belonging to Wayne Walker, a Detroit Lion linebacker. The new look helped define the bar’s clientele.

Jimmy with Andre the Giant.

The Lindell soon became a hangout for Detroit sports figures and players from visiting teams. It wasn’t long before local sports writers and celebrities performing in Detroit found a home at the Lindell. National celebrities like Milton Berle and Jayne Mansfield would stop in. Local celebrities like Detroit’s favorite weatherman Sonny Eliot and Detroit News sports columnist Doc Greene were regulars. Even the Beatles and their entourage went to the bar after their Olympia concert.

The most notorious event in the history of the original Lindell Bar was a publicity stunt for a wrestling match between Detroit Lion defensive tackle Alex Karras and wrestler Dick the Bruiser. Karras needed the cash since he was no longer drawing his NFL salary. The week before, Karras was suspended from the NFL for the 1963 season for admitting he bet on football games.

Karras and the Bruiser in publicity still.

Karras was a friend of Dick the Bruiser from Karras's one season as a pro-wrestler. The Bruiser wanted to help his friend in need. The original idea was born in the mind of Dick the Bruiser. He proposed a publicity stunt in the Lindell Bar to increase the gate at the Olympia match. What began as a publicity stunt became a full-blown bar brawl. In the process, the Bruiser wrecked the bar. The scheduled wrestling match the following Saturday night earned Karras $30,000. [See the link below for more information on that incident]

The Butsicaris brothers took Karras on as a business partner with his $30,000 from the wrestling match. After the bar brawl, the three partners moved the location of the bar to Michigan and Cass avenues. They had no choice. The Lindell Hotel was condemned and scheduled for demolition.

Detroit News sports reporter Doc Greene suggested adding AC (Athletic Club) after the new bar’s name as a sly reference to the Detroit Athletic Club, an exclusive members-only club. Only the city’s business elite and socialites were members. Even famous sports figures could not enter the club without a special guest invitation from a member.

Doc Greene got many of his exclusive sports stories sitting at the original Lindell Bar. He did not want his bosses to know how much time he spent there getting his exclusive stories. In his Detroit News sports articles, he would write he was interviewing this or that athlete at the Athletic Club. It became an inside joke at the bar. Greene would call his wife and say he would be home soon when he was finished at the Athletic Club. As a tribute to Doc Greene, the reincarnated Lindell Bar became the Lindell AC.

Johnny’s son Mel Butsicaris remembers working the night an elephant was brought into the sports bar.

Sonny Eliot behind the bar at the Lindell AC. Photo courtesy of Mel Butsicaris.

“The most talked about photograph in the bar was not of an athlete or celebrity. Back in the 1970s, Bell Telephone and the Yellow Pages had a slogan about an elephant never forgetting, but you have the Yellow Pages for help. They were making a commercial across the street with a baby elephant.

Sonny Eliot

"You don’t see an elephant in downtown Detroit too often, so my dad and I walked over to watch. My dad told the film crew to come over to the bar and he’d buy everyone a drink. As a joke, my dad said while petting the elephant, ‘Bring your friend along.’ About an hour later, the front door opened with this guy pushing this beast through the door. We still can’t believe it, but the elephant fit through. We worried if the floor could handle the weight. Everyone had a good laugh when Sonny Eliot started giving the elephant Coca-Cola to drink. Shortly after, the Coke acted as a laxative for the animal. We used snow shovels to clean up the mess.”

Alex Karras and Curtis Yates

In 1980, CBS filmed a made-for-television movie in the Lindell AC bar called Jimmy B. and Andres. It was based on the true story of Jimmy Butsicaris, who wanted to adopt an African-American boy. Alex Karras starred with his wife Susan Clark, and as the young boy, Curtis Yates. The bar was sanitized as a restaurant for the movie. The spin off became the ABC sitcom Webster with Emmanuel Lewis playing the child’s role.

Jimmy Butsicaris died in 1996, and his brother Johnny died in 2011. The Lindell AC sports bar, said to be the first in the nation, closed its doors in 2002. The building was scheduled for demolition to make way for the Rosa Parks Transit Center.

More information on the Alex Karras/Dick the Bruiser bar brawl:

http://fornology.blogspot.com/2017/02/alex-karras-and-dick-bruisers-detroit.html