The Beginnings of the Old Sauk Trail and the Building of Michigan Avenue (U.S.-12)

In 1820, Michigan Territory geologist, geographer, and ethnographer Henry Rowe Schoolcraft returned to Detroit from an expedition mapping Michigan following the Great Lakes from the headwaters of Lake Erie north and around the Great Lakes to the southern shore of Lake Michigan. Schoolcraft and his expedition returned following what early frontier game hunters called the Sauk Indian Trail across what would become the state of Michigan in 1837.

In his journal notes, Schoolcraft described the trail as a "plain horse path, considerably used by traders, hunters, and settlers." He noted that many minor trails and early dirt roads crossed the Sauk Trail making it difficult to follow in many areas without a guide.

University of Michigan paleontologists discovered that the Sauk Trail was originally formed by the migratory habits of mastodons (woolly mammoths) and ancient bison herds towards the end of the last Ice Age--the Pleistocene era--between 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago. With woolly outer fur and a dense undercoat, mastodons were well-adapted to the Ice Age climate.

Murial by Charles R. Knight--1919

Mastodon skeletons have been found along the southern corridor of the state of Michigan which U of M paleontologists named the Mastodon Trailway because of the great number of remains discovered. The woolly mammoth's Ice Age global range stretched across the northern tier of Eurasia and North America known as the Mammoth Steppe.

As temperatures rose and the glaciers began receding, the mastodons shifted their migration northward again. They co-existed with Stone Age humans who depended on them for food, clothing, and shelter until diminishing surviving herds were hunted to extinction at the end of the Ice Age. Their remains include skeletons, teeth, tusks, and stomach contents. 

The prehistoric trailway continued as a migratory path for herd animals for many thousands of years--most notably elk and deer. Paleo Americans, the ancestors of Native American Indian tribes, used the pathway as a game trail and passageway to the Mississippi River and the heartland of the continent.

Father Gabriel Richard (Ri-CHARD)

In 1823, a civic-minded Jesuit priest from Detroit, Father Gabriel Richard was elected as a non-voting delegate from the Michigan Territory to the House of Representatives for the18th United States Congress. He secured Michigan's first federal appropriation for road construction connecting Detroit with Chicago. The proposed road was surveyed in 1825 by Orange Risdon, who essentially followed the Sauk Trail across the state. Construction began in 1827 and the 210 mile road was finished in 1833 costing a grand total of $87,000.

Orange Risdon--Founder of Saline, Michigan

That year, the first scheduled stagecoach service was established from Detroit to Chicago. Settlers and businessmen from back East took the Erie Canal to Albany or Buffalo, New York, booked passage on a schooner to Detroit, and hired a stage to Chicago once they got to Detroit. The cities of Detroit and Chicago both experienced unprecentented growth in the mid-1830s.

What is presently known as Michigan Avenue has been called many names over the years. First, history records it as the Sauk Trail. It was little more than a footpath until the government improved it and renamed it Military Road. Father Richard pitched the project to Congress for security of the new frontier. Troops and supplies could move east or west on the new territorial road to defend and assist settlers. For a time, the road was known as the Chicago Turnpike, and then its name was shortened to Chicago Road.

The two-lane, highway from Detroit to Chicago has been known as Michigan Avenue since 1926 when the roadway was paved for automobile traffic. With construction of the Interstate Highway System during the Eisenhower administration in the late 1950s, many established U.S. highways were fragmented due to construction.  U.S.-12 was rerouted in some areas including the link between Ypsilanti and Saline to simplify state maps and minimize confusion for motorists. Michigan Avenue goes from Detroit to Dearborn, Wayne, Ypsilanti, Saline, Clinton, Irish Hills, Jonesville, Coldwater, Sturgis, Three Oaks, and New Buffalo before it dips into Michigan City, Indiana.

The story of Michigan Avenue may not be over. In 2020, a project was proposed in Detroit to update a forty mile stretch from Detroit to Ann Arbor, Michigan into the most advanced, high-tech roadway in the world dedicated to autonomous vehicles for the smooth and efficient flow of mass transit and high-tech automobile traffic.

Dedicated lane for automated traffic--artist rendering.

The project, supported by the Ford Motor Company, the Detroit Chamber of Commerce, and forward-looking Michigan politicians, would be a model for a possible multi-billion dollar business partnership between the public and private sectors, making southeast Michigan a hot spot for municipal transportation systems and the cornerstone of the state's economic recovery. An infrastructure development company is building a one-mile pilot road at the American Center for Mobility in Ypsilanti for further research and development.

Erie Canal Populates the Great Lakes Area 

Ypsilanti Beginings

Whitetail deer in the North Woods marking his territory.

The land along the Huron River which became Ypsilanti, Michigan was surrounded by a vast stretch of primeval forest broken only by lakes, marshland, and occasional open tracts of land early settlers called “oak openings.” The ground cover was a tangle of rugged shrubbery blanketed by a deep carpet of fallen leaves decomposing into rich soil the region became known for. Herds of deer and solitary black bears roamed the countryside while smaller game lived in the treetops and along the river banks. Fish, crawdads, and snapping turtles plied the river currents.

The open area where the Huron River bends and narrows at the shallows was a crossroad and neutral ground for the Chippewa, Pottawatomie, Ottawa, and Wyandot (Huron) Native Americans. The area was not a permanent home of any particular tribe, but the Hurons--as the French dubbed them--were known to have a burial ground on the west side of the Huron River.

Birch bark canoe

There were only two ways to enter the area: by river in a canoe or by foot on the Pottawatomie Trail, which followed the Huron River Valley from the headwaters of Lake Erie. This ancient Indian pathway led to the heartland avoiding most terrain and water impediments.

In 1809, three French pioneers Gabriel Godfroy, Francois Pepin, and Romaine La Cambre built and operated an Indian trading post named Godfroy’s on the Pottawatomie. Various tribes traveled east and west at the Huron River crossing. The trading post bartered gaudy trinkets, steel knives, hand-held farm implements, and small kegs of whiskey for beaver, muskrat, bear, deer, fox, and otter pelts. Native American handicrafts were also traded for American goods brought in from Detroit by pack horse on the Pottawatomie Trail.

Two years later, the three Frenchmen, and Godfroy's adult children were issued four tracts of land under the seal of President James Madison known as the original French Claims. Each claim was approximately a half mile wide and two miles long with the Huron River as its eastern boundary. The four claims included two square miles or about 2,500 acres. The trading post burned down in 1815 but was quickly rebuilt. In 1819, Native Americans began moving westward as European civilization encroached. With the conclusion of the Treaty of Paris, Lower Michigan fell out of Native American hands forever. By 1820, the trading post was abandoned and left in ruins.

Meanwhile in Sandusky, Ohio, Benjamin Woodruff’s wife Ella inherited several hundred dollars from her grandfather’s estate. She and her husband decided to invest the windfall where land was cheap--that was Michigan Territory. In the spring of 1823, Benjamin Woodruff, his brother-in-law William Eiclor, Oronte Grant, and Hiram Tuttle decided to improve their lot and set out on the old Indian trail at Lake Erie in search of land to homestead. The group was outfitted with a wagon loaded with provisions and a large number of cattle belonging to Grant and Tuttle. Each of the men had a stake in the success of this venture.

The group lodged with former neighbors from Sandusky, who then lived in Monroe, Michigan. They were familiar with the countryside of Southern Michigan and suggested a clearing near the ruins of Godfroy’s on the Pottawatomie as a favorable location for a settlement. The pioneers sold much of their cattle to finance their enterprise but retained enough livestock for their new farms. They headed into the interior of Michigan Territory, first on a flat-bottomed boat powered by poles the men used to power their cargo upstream.

Where the waterway narrowed and the current was too strong, the men offloaded their wagon, repacked their supplies, and continued west on foot. A couple of days later, the party came upon a suitable stretch of land southeast of the old trading post. The open plain there would be easy to cultivate. The men staked their claims which would soon become their homes hewed out from trees cleared from the land.

Benjamin Woodruff left Hiram Tuttle in charge of the settlement while he returned to Ohio to bring his family and more supplies to their new home. Woodruff with his wife and six children arrived back on July 6th. When news of the new settlement reached Detroit, other people ventured west and were welcomed by the original settlers who envisioned a pioneer metropolis. The newcomers built log cabin frontier homes and cleared and fenced off more farmland. The settlement became known as Woodruff’s Grove.

The first crisis hit the new community in August of 1824. Malaria struck many of the settlers. If it wasn’t for the efforts of Ella Woodruff and Elona Rogers making hot porridge every day and taking it to the afflicted, many settlers would have perished. All but one settler survived.

Fall and winter were times of hardship for the settlement. Supplies had all but run out and money was scarce. But the first corn harvest was good and household gardens yielded plenty of turnips, beans, and potatoes. Venison, small game, and fish provided protein to round out their diet that winter.

The spring of 1825 brought more settlers who cleared and fenced off more land. Wildlife began avoiding the area. That same year, the Territorial Government of Michigan proposed a road be cut through the wilderness to link Detroit and Chicago—the two emerging centers of Great Lakes trade. It was argued that building the road would create a commercial and real estate boom along the road stretching the width of the Michigan territory. The road would also allow the Michigan militia to move supplies and manpower quickly to Chicago if necessary.

Orange Risdon

Surveyor Orange Risdon was commissioned to lay out a practical route in 1825 and was surprised to find how easy the task was by following the well-worn Pottawatomie Trail through the Huron Valley to the old Sauk Trail west. Much to the dismay of the settlers, the survey team bypassed Woodruff’s Grove by three-quarters of a mile north. The distance was not much as the crow flies, but it was enough to destroy the dream of a pioneer metropolis. The small settlement was abandoned and fell into ruin.

Greek General Demetrios Ypsilanti

Soon after the new Chicago Road was surveyed, land developers arrived. Judge Augustus Woodward and his business partners—John Stewart and William Harwood—bought the original French Claims on the Huron River. They platted the land into affordable real estate parcels. They christened their new town Ypsilanti after a Greek general prominent in the news of the day. Shortly after, a frontier town developed. In 1830, Ypsilanti’s first post office was constructed with regular stage and mail service to Detroit instituted. In 1832, the Michigan legislature officially recognized the frontier town as the Village of Ypsilanti. The wilderness had been tamed.