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 The Great Depression stopped nearly all development of the new River Rouge Park in the 1930s. A few amenities from the original 1925 design plan had been built including the roads, bridges and the golf course. However, one other major development was also completed that was not in the plan, the Rouge Park Pools.
 The pools and building were designed by city engineer, Perry A. Fellows, with input on the design of the pools themselves from Charles H. Brennan, president of the Michigan Amateur Athletic Union and a nationally renowned pool designer. The John L. Beecher Company began construction in June 1928 and the pools were opened on July 29, 1929. The speakers at the dedication ceremony on that date included Park Commissioner Henry Busch and Charles H. Brennan. Busch formally dedicated the pools by tossing a red rose in the water. This was followed by a demonstration of three swim strokes by a six-year-old girl, Jean Adams, the first swimmer in the pools.  The pools were immensely popular. Being four miles from the nearest city neighborhood, A trolley car was added along Plymouth Rd. from Grand River Rd. for public access to the pools. The capacity of the pools was 2,800 swimmers, and that number was routinely exceeded on hot summer days with many reports of 4-5,000 a day. The all-time record was 9,718 one day in 1931. The pools recorded about 200,000 swimmers each summer. 
The Brennan Pools received a $758,000 renovation (approximately $5 million in 2025 dollars) in 1974. Sixteen years later, in 1991, the pools were closed temporarily due to budget cuts. In 2010 the pools were closed again, this time for four years and re-opened for the 2014 season after the Lear Corporation completed a $5.5 million renovation, reducing the size of the locker rooms to create a large poolside banquet room. In 2026, construction will begin on a new recreation center sponsored by Tom Gores Family Foundation that will be connected to the Brennan Pools building. There is much more history of the Brennan Pools to tell! Read the story here about attorney William V. Banks who exposed racial discrimination at the pools, and champion swimmer, Mitchell Lucas, who made a bit of civil rights history of his own at the Rouge Park Pools in 1936. 
She was a judge in a Detroit News sponsored birdhouse making contest for youth in 1934. She strongly supported the educational value of the contest and advocated for making the contest a yearly event (see her Letter to the Editor below). The contests did continue, for the next 30 years!  As a member of the Conservation Committee of the Louisa St. Clair Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Wilson was involved with reforestation efforts in decimated forests of northern Michigan, and she later helped develop the Wildwood Nature Trail in Rouge Park. The trail opened in May of 1935. She died less than eight months later, so she never got to see how wildly popular the trail became with the founding of the Detroit News Hiking Club the following year that went on to grow to over 8,000+ members over the next 20 years.
Sadly, less than eight months after the dedication of the trail, Wilson died. On December 20, 1936, a memorial boulder and plaque were placed at the trailhead in her honor. The ceremony included children decorating the pine trees around the recreation center with edible ornaments made of nuts and seeds to attract the birds Wilson so loved. The boulder and plaque were unveiled with the inscription: Entrance to Wildwood Nature Trail – A place where birds may sing and flowers grow. City Forester, C. Edmund Smith announced the proposal for a new Nature Museum, named after her, to be built along the trail.  The Wildwood Nature Trail became more popular than Etta could have ever imagined. On October 25, 1936, the Detroit News held an “exploratory” hike in Rouge Park to gauge the interest in forming a hiking club. To their delight, 1,600 hikers showed up, and the Detroit News Hiking Club was born. The City Recreation Department, the YMCA and other groups organized youth and adult hiking events as well.  The Detroit News Hikers formed dozens of “units,” small groups that organized their own hiking locations and schedules. The Wildwood Trail and other trails later developed in the park became major destinations. Membership in the club grew to 8,000 members in 61 units and continued until 1956. In addition to weekly hikes, they held many seasonal events such as their annual Winter Rally in Rouge Park beginning in 1940. In that year, the event attracted 8,000 participants. Activities included cross-country skiing, figure skating, acrobatics, competitions in art, singing, poetry and photography, and four hikes, the longest being 8 miles long! They even crowned an "Outdoor Queen" proficient in at least two winter sports, and recognized 50 married couples who first met hiking in Rouge Park! The popularity of the Wildwood Nature Trail spawned the later development of the Raccoon Hollow Trail and the River Nature Trail connecting the Nature Center at the Joe Prance Day Camp area to the Scout Hollow Campground, archery range and the pools. In 1951, during a rash of thefts of historical markers across the city, the Wildwood Nature Trail Boulder and plaque were stolen. Later, the bridge where the trail crossed the river collapsed, was not replaced, and the trail fell into disrepair.
 Restoration of the four mile trail continues. Next month we will take a deeper look at the fascinating story of the trail’s inspiration and originator, Etta S. Wilson.
 In 1914, Charles E. Sorensen, Henry Ford's right hand man and the chief developer of the first assembly line, built his country estate on land purchased from Henry Ford’s uncle along the Rouge River, north of Warren Avenue in Dearborn Township. Just ten years later, he sold the estate on 137 acres to the City for $300,000 (nearly $10 million in 2025 dollars), one of 26 farms purchased for the creation of Rouge Park.
  In 1967, the front lawn of the center was the site of the vicious murder of Daniel Thomas by a group of inebriated young white men who were later acquitted by an all-white jury. Afterwards, use of the center declined. It was then closed as a result of budget cuts in the 1970s and ‘80s. In 1984, the vacant building burned and was demolished. In 2018, with a grant from the Motor Cities Heritage Association, the Friends of Rouge Park opened the Sorensen Automotive History Interpretive Trail along the Stone Promenade. In 2020 and 2021, a new paved walking path, picnic shelter, playground, soccer and baseball field were added on the former grounds of the recreation center. In 2022, Friends of Rouge Park re-dedicated the Ma'iingan Wildwood Trail in honor of DAR member, and key proponent of the original 1935 nature trail, Etta S. Wilson, with a new boulder and plaque to replace the original one stolen in 1951. This fall, construction will begin on a new Rouge Park Recreation Center attached to the Brennan Pools Building. We dream of it becoming a new hub of activity for the park again and help in the revitalization of this great Detroit landmark park.
In the Rouge Park Prairie, where the Butterfly Garden is today, nuclear missiles once stood ready to be launched at Russia? In 1955, the U.S. military built three Nike missile silos there. A command center, offices and barracks were built south of Joy Road between Trinity Street and Spinoza Drive, and north of Joy Road between the Detroit Mounted Police horse barn and Cozy Corners Recreation Area. Once a week they would conduct a test drill and raise the missiles up from the silos into launch position, then return them underground with a crowd of spectators watching from Outer Drive.   
 The first Soap Box Derby was held July 17-20, 1935 on Derby Hill in Rouge Park. The Detroit Chevrolet Dealers Association and the Detroit News co-sponsored the event and the winner advanced to the national race in Akron, OH in August. The first year drew a crowd of 3,000 and 5,000 respectively for the first two days of qualifying races and 10,000 for the finals on July 20. The Soap Box Derby instantly became an annual Rouge Park institution, and for the next 20 years attracted an ever-growing number of contestants and spectators lining Spinoza Drive from the top of Derby Hill down nearly to Tireman Street.  The event would actually begin a week before with hundreds of boys (girls were not allowed to compete until 1971) bringing their cars to the lawn and ball fields in front of the Rouge Park Recreation Center at Spinoza Drive and Sawyer Street for inspection. The rules were strict. The driver must be 9-15 years old. The car and driver combined could not weigh over 250 lbs. or be more than 80 inches long. There were limits on the materials used and of the total cost so that boys from wealthier families could not have an unfair advantage. And of course, they needed to have functioning steering and brakes.  The final championship race was usually preceded by a parade and marching band and family picnics afterwards. The winner received an all expense paid flight on the Detroit News airplane to the national championships in Akron, OH. Awards for second and third place included cash prizes, bicycles and more.  In 1940, the Detroit winner at Derby Hill was a 12 year old named Tom Fisher. He went on to be the first (and last) Detroiter to win the National Championship in Akron and became an instant Detroit celebrity. The Derby was canceled during the WWII years of 1942-45, but resumed in 1946 with record crowds. In 1947, when television was in it’s infancy and less than 1% of Americans owned a TV, the Rouge Park Soap Box Derby was among the very first televised events in Detroit history.  By 1953, complaints about Derby Hill race course began to grow (Spinoza Drive begins to curve slightly to the right after the bottom of the hill) and led to demands for a new, straighter track. So, the final soap box derby for Rouge Park was held on July 23, 1955. The race was moved to a new track at Dorais Memorial Park at Mound Road and Outer Drive on the east side of Detroit. It continued there until the early 1980s, but interest in the event dropped off precipitously with only 18-30 boys and girls entering the competition, and as few as 200 spectators. Maybe they should have kept the Derby in beautiful Rouge Park? Photos and articles from the Detroit News. See more Soap Box Derby history from the Detroit News here.   The original plan for Rouge Park envisioned a grand entrance to the park at Joy Rd. and Trinity St. The Joy & Spinoza area was to be the center of activity in the park complete with a bus station for Detroiters arriving at this rural park, over five miles from the nearest Detroit neighborhood.  Arriving at the park, a short walking path would lead visitors to “The Mall,” a ¼ mile long, 200 ft. wide promenade. Strolling down the center of the mall, a park visitor would first pass a large amphitheater named the “Music Court” on their right that could seat hundreds. To their left they would walk along three acres of formal gardens in front of a glass conservatory similar to the one on Belle Isle. Continuing on, they would pass an acre of perennial gardens to arrive at a large Casino building on par with the one on Belle Isle. But alas, the Great Depression struck before construction began and the project was put on hold. Gardens were eventually built, but not until World War II, and they were the Victory Gardens grown during WWII and not formal flower gardens planned. Buildings were also eventually built, but they were for the soldiers staffing the Nike Missile Complex on Outer Drive south of Joy Rd in the Mid-1950s, not the conservatory, casino or amphitheater. After the decommissioning of the Nike base in 1963, 20 acres were taken for the construction of Lessenger Junior High in 1964 and two softball fields were added, but the original project was never built. Since 2002, the Friends of Rouge Park have used this area for the annual Rouge Park Appreciation Day event that usually attracts about 300 volunteers to clean-up and improve the park. Every summer, the sweet singing eastern meadowlarks use the open grasslands there to raise their young. Nationwide, their population has declined by 75% since 1966, so the Friends of Rouge Park have worked out an agreement with the city to leave this area un-mowed until August so as not to disturb the nesting area for this beautiful and vanishing bird. In future newsletters we’ll look at some of the other early plans for Rouge Park including a 30,000 seat amphitheater, a 100 acre lake, a dance pavilion and many others.  |
AuthorPaul Stark, Rouge Park Historian Archives
December 2025
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