Long before the depot, there was the River: Native Americans congregate where the Great Sauk Trail crosses the River in what is now Riverside Park.
1680: French explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle, cuts across the lower peninsula from Lake Michigan to Detroit, entering the River near today’s village of Dexter, passing through this region, to a position just downstream of Belleville. They continued to de Troit by land.
1809: Three Frenchmen, Gabriel Godfroy, Francois Pepin and Romaine La Chambre, establish a trading post, “Godfroy’s on the Pottawatomie Trail,” on the site of the present Edison (DTE/Riverside Arts Center) Building.
1823: Benjamin Woodruff, William Eiclor, Oronte Grant, and Hiram Tuttle, arrive at Monroe, establish Woodruff’s Grove (Ford Lake at Grove Road). They are joined by David Stiles, Willard and George Hall, and Captain Fair. John Bryan and his wife arrive from Detroit by ox team, presumably the first ox team and wagon to follow what will be called the great Chicago Road. The Bryans’ newborn son is recognized as the first white person born in Washtenaw County.
1825: Father Gabriel Richard surveys and opens the road from Detroit to Chicago to aid influx of settlers expected from New York’s Erie Canal. Woodruff’s Grove pioneers move settlement a mile upstream to the Great Sauk Trail/Chicago Road (Michigan Avenue). Judge Augustus Woodward, John Stewart, and William H. Harwood design new village to be named for Greek Civil War hero, General Demetrius Ypsilantis.
1834: Mark Norris and Daniel Cross design first addition to the village establishing the East Side as far north as Forest Avenue.
February 8, 1838: First train arrives from Detroit on the “Central Road.” 53 nineteenth century mills are established along the Huron River between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. Mill owners’ stylish and stately mansions arise along Huron and River Streets.
1850s: Wooden depot is demolished to allow tracks to continue to The West. Commercial district develops around new MCRR depot. Depot district becomes staging point for Michigan militias in the Civil War. Hotels, lodge halls, groceries, taverns and other small businesses serve the local workingman’s community for one hundred years.
1950s: Railroad traffic declines with the end of World War II. Neighborhood goes into steady decline as Interstate highways and shopping malls spread the population to suburbia.
1976: Local merchants and residents organize the Depot Town Association to create a plan to renovate, restore, and repair the old commercial district. Promotions, street festivals, and parades help to revitalize the commercial district. Association incorporates, and establishes nonprofit status.
2007: The Depot Town Association incorporates its 501 (c) (3) nonprofit status into a Community Development Corporation (CDC) with the mandate to raise private and public funds for economic development, housing, parks and recreation for Depot Town and the City of Ypsilanti.
