History
The area had been inhabited for thousands of years by varying indigenous peoples. Historical tribes belonged mostly to the Algonquian-language family, although the Huron were Iroquoian speaking.
The Dearborn area was settled by Europeans in 1786, after the American Revolutionary War. The village of Dearbornville was established in 1836, named after patriot Henry Dearborn, a General in the American Revolution and Secretary of War under President Thomas Jefferson. The town of Dearborn was incorporated in 1893, changing to a city in 1927. Its current borders trace back to a 1928 consolidation vote that established its present-day borders by merging Dearborn and neighboring Fordson (previously known as Springwells), which feared being absorbed into Detroit.
The area between the two towns was, and still remains in part, undeveloped. Once farm land, this was bought by Henry Ford for his estate, Fair Lane, and the Ford Motor Company World Headquarters. Later developments in this corridor were the Ford airport (later converted to the Dearborn Proving Grounds), other Ford administrative and development facilities, The Henry Ford (the region's leading tourist attraction containing a reconstructed historic village and museum), the Henry Ford Centennial Library, the super-regional shopping mall Fairlane Town Center, and the Dearborn Civic Center. It is planted with sunflowers and often with Henry Ford's favorite soybeans. The crops are never harvested.
The Arab American National Museum (AANM) opened in Dearborn in 2005, the first museum in the world devoted to Arab-American history and culture. Most of the Arab-Americans in Dearborn and the Detroit area are ethnic Lebanese, who immigrated in the early twentieth century to work in the auto industry, like many immigrants to the area. They have been joined by more recent Arab immigrants from other nations.
Read more about this topic: Dearborn, Michigan
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