Celebrate Detroit: United Irish Societies Plaza Traditional Geocache
-allenite-: As there's been no response from the cache owner to my previous note, I'm archiving it to keep it from continually showing up in search lists and to prevent it from blocking other cache placements. Please note that if geocaches are archived by a reviewer or Geocaching HQ for lack of maintenance, they are not eligible for unarchival.
Celebrate Detroit: United Irish Societies Plaza
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(small)
Related Web Page
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Located in a small park on the edge of Corktown, a residential
neighborhood. Co-hidden with Corktownmum.
Cache is a small container. Nice find for Detroiters on their
lunch hour, families and pets.
The Corktown neighborhood is Detroit's oldest surviving
neighborhood. It is only half as old as the city itself, however.
Cadillac founded Detroit in 1701 as the only significant town in
French controlled territory between the St. Lawrence River Valley
and the Illinois country. The other French settlements were
generally Indian missions, forts, and trading posts. French
government policy discouraged towns and farms west of Montreal. The
British acquired Detroit by treaty in 1763 and belatedly yielded it
to the new United States in 1796. Even then, Detroit remained
largely settled by families of French descent. Settlers from the
East Coast states generally preferred the Ohio River Valley and
lands southward, as they were more accessible via the Ohio River
and gave farmers a longer growing season. As late as 1825, the only
product worth exporting from Detroit was fur-next in revenue was
fish which wasn't worth carting east. Half of Detroit residents
still bore French surnames in 1825. That year the Erie Canal opened
across New York state to Lake Erie, and New Englanders began
following it west. By 1840, with a population of over 9,000,
Detroit was the third largest town in the Midwest after Cincinnati
and St. Louis-Michigan was still rural. Detroit grew into a
manufacturing town. Now it drew immigrants from all over the
Atlantic. By 1890, Detroit ranked fourth among American cities of
over 100,000 population in percentage of foreign-born
residents.
The failure of political uprisings and reforms in Europe after 1848
stimulated German immigrants to cross the Atlantic in large
numbers. Generally the Germans settled on Detroit's Near East Side,
near today's Lafayette Park neighborhood. At mid-century, the Irish
were the largest ethnic group among Detroit's newcomers, prompted
by the Potato Famine in Ireland in the mid-1840's. The Irish moved
into the near West Side. Since many of these came from County Cork,
their neighborhood came to be known as "Corktown." In 1853, half
the population of the Eighth Ward (which took in Corktown) was of
Irish descent. The Corktown neighborhood was originally much larger
than the fragment surviving today. It extended westward from Third
Street by a dozen or more blocks away from the Detroit River past
Michigan Avenue towards Grand River Avenue. The area south of
Michigan Avenue was much reduced by clearance for the Lodge Freeway
and for urban renewal for offices and light industry by the 1960's.
The surviving residential fragment is listed on the National
Register of Historic Places and is designated as a City of Detroit
Historic District. The district includes about 300 structures
housing about 2,000 people. In spite of its relatively early time
of platting, Corktown still offers a full spectrum of house
fashions of the whole second half of the nineteenth century. Houses
in Corktown are typically built close to each other on narrow
25-foot lots extending perhaps 130 feet from front sidewalk to back
alley. This is a land pattern dating back to the London of King
Charles II over 300 years ago. Towns like Detroit were built to
limits of convenient walking distances until the arrival of public
transportation extended the radius. Our first horse-drawn trolley
cars appeared on Michigan Avenue in November 1863. More important
to Corktown was the Baker Street Trolley line, opened in 1873. It
passed along Bagley Avenue (originally "Baker Street" in Corktown).
June 1996 by Gordon Pritchard Bugbee (1934-2000)
FTF: Limited Edition 2003 Peace Tile made by CorktownMum for the
dedication of the Peace Pole at St. Peters Episcopal Church
May each step bring you closer to God.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Jvgu Ybir sbe Tbq Naq Pbhagel