Ypsilanti: Named for a Greek War Hero Mid-Revolution
Near Ann Arbor, Michigan
Major Thomas Woodruff established a permanent settlement on the Huron River in eighteen twenty-three, calling it Woodruff's Grove. A separate settlement nearby adopted a more ambitious name in eighteen twenty-five: Ypsilanti, after General Demetrios Ypsilantis, a Greek military commander then leading the revolt against Ottoman rule. The timing was deliberate.
Americans were following the Greek War of Independence closely, and naming a Michigan village after a living freedom fighter was a statement. Woodruff's Grove took the Ypsilanti name in eighteen twenty-nine, the same year Ypsilantis won a key battle at Petra and effectively secured Greek independence. The city grew as a manufacturing center, home to the company that became Bendix Aviation and to Ford's Willow Run bomber plant, which at its peak built about one B-twenty-four Liberator aircraft every sixty-three minutes during World War Two.
