Fun Facts & Firsts on Woodward

Detroit-Windsor Vehicular Tunnel opened to the public in 1930. Until recently it was the world's only underwater, transnational vehicular tunnel. An average of 24,000 vehicles pass through the tunnel daily.
      
The world's first electric traffic light was installed at Woodward and Michigan Avenues in 1920.
      
Detroit Industry Murals at the Detroit Institute of Artsinitiated in 1932 when industrial magnet Edsel Ford commissioned Mexican artist Diego Rivera to fill the museum's central courtyard with murals depicting the city's industry, the automobile industry of course figuring prominently.
      
The Motor City Exhibit the Detroit Historical Museum includes an actual two-story assembly line taken from Cadillac's Clark Avenue Plant.
      
The 1904 Ford Piquette Avenue Plant is the "birthplace of the Model T,"  the most significant car of the twentieth century that "put the world on wheels."
      
The Home of Henry and Clara Ford at 140 Edison Avenue from 1908 until 1915 when Henry Ford revolutionized American life and the national economy by introducing the Model T, applying the moving assembly line concept of automobile production.
      
Davison Limited Expressway built in 1941, --- the first urban highway in the United States --- intersects Woodward Avenue in Highland Park.
      
The 1909 Ford Highland Park Plant the "birthplace" of the moving assembly line, daylight factory and the Five Dollar Day.
      
The world's first mile of paved concrete road on Woodward Avenue between Six and Seven Mile Roads in 1909.
      
Section 10 of the Woodlawn Cemetery includes the final resting places of several notable figures in the automobile industry including John and Horace Dodge, Joseph Hudson, Edsel Ford and Roy Chapin.
      
The Detroit Zoo, the first zoo in the U.S. where exhibits were entirely bar less and whose plan allowed panoramic views.
      
The Michigan State Fair on Woodward Avenue is the oldest state fair in the nation, first held in 1849.
      
Woodward Avenue the American "birthplace" of the Shrine Circus.
      
Woodward Avenue "birthplace" of the first nationally prominent civil rights group (1889) the Afro-American League.
      
Woodward Avenue the only street where automobile engineers "street tested" new models adding unique significance to "Cruising Woodward" in the 1950's - late 1960's.
      
Woodward's first Labor Day Parade- held July 4, 1865, predates the official declaration of a Labor Day holiday by almost 30 years.
      
The foot of Woodward, the narrowest point of the Detroit River, served as the end of the road and a crossing to freedom into Canada for many runaway slaves using the underground railroad.
      
On July 24, 1701, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac landed at the foot of Woodward to establish a French settlement --- to become Detroit.
      
Woodward Avenue, June 1963 civil rights march along Woodward by over 125,000 demonstrators --- a dress rehearsal for Dr. Martin Luther King's more famous March on Washington held two months later. Dr King delivers an earlier and more elaborate version of his renowned "I Have A Dream" speech.
      
Woodward Avenue is north of Canada.