West Canfield Historic District (Boundary Increase)

About this property

The Cass Farm MPS is a US multiple property submission to the National Register of Historic Places which was approved on December 1, 1997. The structures included are all located in Midtown, in the Cass Farm area in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The Cass Farm area is defined as occupying the space between Woodward Avenue on the east, the Lodge Freeway on the west, Warren Avenue on the north, and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on the south. The Cass Farm area spans portions of four original plattings. These include the rear portions of three original ribbon farms (the Cass Farm, the Jones/Crane Farm, and the Forsyth Farm), as well as a section of the Park Lots between Woodward and Cass. The Park Lots were originally platted after the disastrous 1805 fire in Detroit. After the fire, the United States Congress authorized the platting of a new village at Detroit. Land titles were granted to settle remaining uncertainty over the ownership of some parcels, which was in part due to the then fairly recent departure of British colonial forces. During this platting, the land on both sides of the main thoroughfare, Woodward Avenue, was set aside, with congress authorizing the platting of the Park Lots. Development of the area, however, only started in the 1860s. Cass Farm ran between what is now Cass Avenue and Third Avenue. In 1816, Lewis Cass purchased the ribbon farm. The property was gradually developed over the years, with the sections closest to the river being developed first. By the time Cass died in 1866, a few of the blocks north of Martin Luther King Boulevard had just been platted. Cass's children continued to plat the area after his death. The Jones/Crane Farm was located between what is now Third Avenue and the alley east of Fourth Street. De Garmo Jones, onetime mayor of Detroit, received the property in 1823. The rear portion of the ribbon farm changed owners multiple times until Flavius JB Crane purchased it in 1854, when he began platting it. The Forsythe Farm was located between what is now Fourth Street and the Lodge Freeway. John Forsythe purchased the property in 1829; it was later subdivided multiple times, with various owners eventually platting the property. Development of the area was relatively slow. In the early part of the 19th century, residential growth in Detroit occurred primarily east and west of Woodward, along Fort Street and Jefferson Avenue; the areas near Cass Farm were still predominantly rural in nature. Urban development of the area did not really begin until 1870, when the population of Detroit was nearly 80,000. Streetcar lines established in the 1860s allowed residents to more conveniently travel from the Cass Farm area to downtown.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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