VACATION AND TRAVEL
Ecorse Township is no longer a township since all the smaller cities within its area incorporated into villages, and then broke apart having their own identity as individual cities, which consisted of an area of 54 square miles in its day. This included two small islands in the Detroit River. It was bordered to the north by Springwells Township with the boundary being the “River” Rouge. Now, to the west it was bordered by Dearborn and Taylor Townships, with the primary boundary being Pelham Road. To the south, it was bordered by Monguagon Township, and a small part of Brownstown Township, with the primary boundary being Pennsylvania Road. Finally, to the east, it was bordered by the Detroit River.
Organized in 1827, the entire township has since been incorporated, and includes the cities of “Melvindale, Allen Park, Lincoln Park, River Rouge, Ecorse, Southgate, Wyandotte,” and the “Boynton and Oakwood Heights” neighborhoods of Detroit. The Ecorse Township was established on April 12, 1827 along with eight other townships in the Michigan Territorial in a major reorganization of Wayne County. The first known permanent settler in what would become Ecorse Township was “Pierre Michel Campau,” who arrived in 1795. He settled in “Southgate” which became a farming community. Other people from the Detroit area at the “Rouge and Detroit Rivers” followed him to Southgate. Some records indicate settlers were near the mouth of the Ecorse River as early as 1764.
The name Southgate was chosen because it was considered the south entrance to the city of “Detroit” at that time. The first mayor of Southgate was “Thomas J. Anderson,” who came up with the name “Southgate.” He has a high school named after him near where I live. Southgate became a city in 1958, the year I was born!
Article by Michael Joseph Lynch
A Brief History of
“Ecorse Township”
Michigan
The 1918 Goodell School on the corner of Champaign Road at Fort Street (a CVS drug store sits where the
school once sat)