Dearborn Michigan History & Facts

Dearborn is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 109,976. Dearborn is the seventh most-populated city in Michigan and is home to the largest Muslim population in the United States per capita. It also is home to the largest mosque in the United States.

First settled in the late 18th century by ethnic French farmers in a series of ribbon farms along the Rouge River and the Sauk Trail, the community grew in the 19th century with the establishment of the Detroit Arsenal on the Chicago Road linking Detroit and Chicago. In the 20th century, it developed as a major manufacturing hub for the automotive industry.

Henry Ford was born on a farm here and later established an estate in Dearborn, as well as his River Rouge Complex, the largest factory of his Ford empire. He developed mass production of automobiles, and based the world headquarters of the Ford Motor Company here. The city has a campus of the University of Michigan as well as Henry Ford College. The Henry Ford, the United States' largest indoor-outdoor historic museum complex and Metro Detroit's leading tourist attraction, is located here.

Dearborn residents are Americans primarily of European or Middle Eastern ancestry, many descendants of 19th and 20th-century immigrants. The primary European ethnicities, as identified by respondents to the census, are German, Polish, Irish, and Italian. Because of new waves of immigration from the Middle East in the late 20th century, the largest ethnic grouping is now composed of descendants of various nationalities of that area: Muslims and Christians from Lebanon and Palestine, as well as immigrants from Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

Before European encounter, the area had been inhabited for thousands of years by successive indigenous peoples. Historical tribes belonged mostly to the Algonquian-language family, especially the Council of Three Fires, the Potawatomi and related peoples. In contrast, the Huron (Wyandot) were Iroquoian speaking. French colonists had a trading post at Fort Detroit and a settlement developed there in the colonial period. Another developed on the south side of the Detroit River in what is now southwestern Ontario, near a Huron mission village. French and French-Canadian colonists also established farms at Dearborn in this period. France ceded all of its territory east of the Mississippi River in North America to Great Britain in 1763 after losing to the English in the Seven Years' War.

Beginning in 1786, after the United States gained independence in the American Revolutionary War, more European Americans entered this region, settling in Detroit and the Dearborn area. With population growth, Dearborn Township was formed in 1833 and the village of Dearbornville in 1836, each named after patriot Henry Dearborn, a general in the American Revolution who later served as Secretary of War under President Thomas Jefferson. The Town of Dearborn was incorporated in 1893. Through much of the 19th century, the area was largely rural and dependent on agriculture.

Stimulated by industrial development in Detroit and within its own limits, in 1927 Dearborn was established as a city. Its current borders result from a 1928 consolidation vote that merged Dearborn and neighboring Fordson (previously known as Springwells), which feared being absorbed into expanding Detroit.

According to historian James W. Loewen, in his book Sundown Towns (2005), Dearborn discouraged African Americans from settling in the city. In the early 20th century, both whites and African Americans migrated to Detroit for industrial jobs. Over time, some city residents relocated in the suburbs. Many of Dearborn's residents "took pride in the saying, 'The sun never set on a Negro in Dearborn'". According to Orville Hubbard, the segregationist mayor of Dearborn from 1942 to 1978, "as far as he was concerned, it was against the law for a Negro to live in his suburb. Hubbard told the Montgomery Advertiser in the mid-1950s, "Negroes can't get in here. Every time we hear of a Negro moving in, we respond quicker than you do to a fire."

Famous Peoples From Dearborn Michigan

Colin Egglesfield

(born February 9, 1973) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Josh Madden in the long-running soap opera All My Children, Auggie Kirkpatrick on The CW's short-lived drama series Melrose Place, and Evan Parks on The Client List.

Egglesfield was born in Farmington Hills, Michigan, the second child of Kathleen (née Dineen) and William Egglesfield, a physician. His mother is Irish. He has two siblings: an older sister, Kerry, and a younger brother, Sean. He was brought up in a Catholic household.

Shy in his adolescent years, he credits his prep football coach, Dave Mattio, with helping gain a positive self-esteem. After Egglesfield graduated from Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, he attended Illinois Wesleyan University and played for the football team. He transferred to the University of Iowa, where he was in the pre-med program. After he received his BS from Iowa he backpacked throughout Europe.

To earn money for medical school, Egglesfield turned to modeling. He won a contest after entering at the urging of a friend, and left medicine behind for a modeling career. He is signed with Beatrice Model agency in Milan, Italy, and DNA Model Management in New York City. He modeled for Versace, Calvin Klein, and Armani, among others before he started acting. In the late 1990s, he was featured on the covers of Vogue Italia (shot by Steven Meisel) and L'Uomo Vogue (twice, photographed by Bruce Weber and Ellen Von Unwerth respectively).

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