Woodward Avenue south of 10 Mile Road in the 1930s.
Woodward Avenue is so much a part of Royal Oak, Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, and surrounding towns - what would life be like without it? For decades it has allowed quick access to city and country, like our modern freeways. Isn't Woodward still used to go to Detroit when I-75 is jammed?
Woodward runs north-northwest by south-southeast, often confusing our direction. This is because it, along with Jefferson, Gratiot, Michigan, and Grand River Avenues, and Fort Street are the great roads laid out in a spokes-of-a-wheel pattern over an earlier rectangular coordinate street plan.
Woodward Avenue south of 10 Mile Road in the 1930s.
Woodward has been called variously the "Saginaw" Road, the "Detroit-Pontiac" Road, and the "Big Gravel". It begins at the Detroit River and runs to Pontiac and beyond. It was named in 1807 for Augustus B. Woodward, one of the first judges of the Territory of Michigan, and author of the Detroit (street) Plan of 1806.
As the Saginaw Road, it was laid out in Oakland County in 1827. The old Territorial Road crossed Woodward near Ten Mile, following along the old Saginaw (Indian) Trail through Royal Oak, and then paralleled Woodward about 1-1/2 miles east until Birmingham was reached. This route was used until the new road had been surveyed and improved.
Even the improved road was often axle deep in sand, and in wet weather, water and mud. Early settler Heman Castle said this when he and his family journeyed from Detroit to Royal Oak Township in September, 1830: "I started from the City in the morning and soon found mud and further along more mud and mud and water and timber and timber, perhaps I should say trees growing in the water and the road built of logs and mud and water thrown on top of them......"
A Detroit and Pontiac Turnpike company was chartered in 1837, but did little to improve the road. In 1846 the company was still attempting to collect the tolls. Its failure to improve travel conditions inspired mob violence at the Royal Oak toll gate, resulting in destruction of the toll house. Sometime later, Thomas and Amy Castleton Brown operated a store and the Turnpike toll gate on Woodward about two blocks south of Eight Mile.
By 1844, mail was going by way of the Saginaw Road, leaving Pontiac six days of the week, while mail to other points in the county on other roads left only once or twice a week, suggesting that road conditions had improved.
The first public-house in Royal Oak township, was opened on the Detroit and Pontiac road by Mary Ann Chappell. She was universally known as "Mother Handsome", presumably because of her lack of physical beauty. After beginning in Detroit, she eventually located in a frame house on the west side of the Road, on a 40-acre parcel of land. The tavern was approximately between the present Oakridge and Drayton Avenues. Hers' was the first frame building to be built in what is now Ferndale.
Another early Woodward resident was Clark Rose, son of Virgil and Cordelia Rose, settlers in what is now Pleasant Ridge. Clark built his home on the west side of Woodward near Millington about the time of the Civil War. His house was later moved to Ten Mile Road to make room for construction of the Alfred F. Wilcox House or "Castle".
Even into this century, Woodward was a narrow, two-lane, dirt and gravel, and often muddy or dusty road, not the wide eight-lane boulevard of today. This is shown well in the photos.
Readers should be reminded that in addition to autos and trucks, Woodward carried Detroit United Railway (DUR) interurban cars on two sets of tracks on its west side. The situation was even more severe on Woodward from Twelve Mile north, since both the interurban and Grand Trunk Western trains ran along the east side. Imagine the dangers at the grade crossings with streetcars and trains coming and going, along with autos.
Bumper to bumper traffic was common on Woodward in the early days of the century. Even my great great uncle Chester from Perth, Australia mentioned "the nose-to-rear traffic of 'flivvers' going southeast on Sunday morning and northwest in the afternoon on the 'Flint Highway'" (Woodward) while visiting my great grandfather William H. Penney in 1919.