History
Originally a marsh-filled peninsula at the mouth of the River Rouge, it served as an uninhabited Native American burial ground for centuries. Upon European arrival, the land was incorporated into Ecorse Township, making up the very northeast corner of the township. The beginning of interest in developing the land came when Samuel Zug came to Detroit from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania in 1836 to make his fortune in the furniture industry with the money he earned as a bookkeeper. Shortly after, Marcus Stevenson, a Detroit financier, went into business with him.
The Stevenson & Zug Furniture Company flourished until 1859 when Zug, now a rich man, dissolved the partnership. He decided to invest in real estate to provide security for his wife, Ann. Envisioning a luxurious estate on the Detroit River, Zug bought 325 acres (1.32 km2) of marshy land below Fort Wayne from the town of Delray in 1876. But the dampness was too much for the Zugs and after 10 years they abandoned their home.
In 1888, Zug let the River Rouge Improvement Company cut a small canal through the south section of his property to connect the Rouge River and the Detroit River (this Short Cut Canal, as it came to be known, was enlarged in the early 1920s by Henry Ford to allow large ships to more easily navigate to and from his famous Ford River Rouge Complex). Three years later Zug pulled off the largest real estate transaction of the decade: he sold his island for $300,000 to industries that wanted it as a dumping ground.
Zug became interested in politics and served as Wayne County Auditor under Gov. John J. Bagley. He died in 1896 at the age of 80.
Read more about this topic: Zug Island
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.”
—Henry Geldzahler (1935–1994)