(All photos from Detroit Public Library Digital Collection) – It is one of the largest and most well attended automotive events in the country and it happens on one of the most iconic roads in North America. The event is the Woodward Dream Cruise and the road is the iconic Woodward Avenue. The Woodward Dream Cruise is massive and the 2017 version is coming up in about a month but there will be unofficial fun happening all summer. In honor of this event we went to the Detroit Public Library’s insane and awesome photo archive to deliver you a look at Woodward Avenue from the turn of the 20th century forward.
While hot rodders like to key into the fact that the Big 3 did clandestine muscle car testing on the road and sections of it were street racing hubs for the Detroit area, it has a larger automotive significance than that. Some 100 auto companies were formed along the road and its vicinity over the years. Yes, virtually all of them are long gone but the fact that this area was such a crucible for the early auto industry is pretty awesome.
As many of you know, Woodward boasted the first concrete paved portions of public road in the country. It started out as a path, was eventually upgraded to logs, and then planks, and then concrete and eventually pavement. The story of Woodward is in many ways the story of the car itself and the story of the Woodward Dream Cruise has definitely helped to preserve a road that has been as decorated as a ribbon of pavement could possibly be.
Get this, the US Department of Transportation has named Woodward the Automotive Heritage Trail. It has been named an All-American Road by another agency, a Pure Michigan Byway by the Michigan DOT, and lastly it was included in a late 1990s congressional bill as part of the MotorCities National Heritage Area. In short, this road is more than just another means to get somewhere and the love and appreciation people have for it will be on full display all week and throughout the summers for decades to come.
Rather than go nuts on you with all the stats and history of the road and the event, just do yourself a favor and scroll down through the photos for a look back at Woodward Avenue long before the idea of cruising, street racing, and the definitive car culture of the United States were ever formed. This is an amazing window into history!
SCROLL FOR THIS PILE OF HISTORIC WOODWARD AVE PHOTOS
I am sorry to see that no one has posted on this item up to now. I love history and photographs, that did not exist until a little over a century ago, allow us to visualize a slice of life from a past time. We are lucky. Prior to photo\’s we only had drawings and paintings, which are the interpretation of the artist. I have never lived in Detroit but have visited there, mostly for sports events, many times. These photo\’s and ones from Shorpy from a century ago make me think that I would have loved to live in Detroit. Men with suits and hats, woman in long dresses with well kept streets and houses make Detroit look positively inviting.