River Rouge, Michigan: Steel and the River

River Rouge takes its name from the red-banked stream that flows along its northern edge into the Detroit River. The French called it La Riviere Rouge. What was once farm and wetland at the confluence became one of the most industrial corners of America.

Sitting between the iron ore of Michigan's Upper Peninsula and the coal mines of the east, the location was ideal for heavy manufacturing. The community formally incorporated as a city on April third, nineteen twenty-two, carved from Ecorse Township. By then Ford's nearby Rouge complex was already reshaping the region, and the city's own steel and chemical plants made it part of the industrial engine that built mid-century America.