He was memorialized first with the Fred Bear Museum in 1967 in Grayling, Michigan (moved to Gainesville, Florida in 1978), and then later, after his death in 1988, with a bronze stature in Grayling in 2024. Grayling has hosted an annual three-day celebration, Fred Bear Day, every March since 2018.

The Detroit Archers had many phenomenal successes in their early years with Fred Bear himself winning the Michigan Target Archery State Championship in 1934, 1937 and 1939. The women’s team won the 1936 Olympic Indoor League Championship, and the following year the men’s team won the National Archery Association Championship. That same year, club member Carl Strang set two new world records. He went on to become an Olympic Archery Champion.

In 1946, the range became public and was managed by the Parks & Recreation Department. Website: Tournaments and classes continued to be held there through the 1960s.

Since 2007, Elite Archery Academy has been hosting classes and tournaments there.

​For more information, contact Elite Archery Academy at 313-740-7129
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://elitejoad.com/

The first archery club in Michigan, the Detroit Archers was organized in 1928 by a group who began shooting together in Rouge Park in 1924. The legendary promoter of the sport and owner of Bear Archery Company, Fred Bear, was the club’s first president.

Bear was much more than a product developer and entrepreneur, he was also a conservationist who pioneered in film, TV production and outdoor magazines to teach respect and appreciation for nature and wildlife through the sport of archery.  

 In an era when women and girls were denied equal opportunities in sports (even the Rouge Park Soap Box Derby forbid girls to compete until 1971), the Detroit Archers hosted many local and state-wide tournaments with men, women, boys and girls divisions. Member Frederick D. Hess led classes for Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls in Rouge Park in the 1930s and 1940s.

​Another famous Rouge Park archer from this period was Lila Neuenfelt (top photo, on the left). Elected as the first female judge in Dearborn in 1929, and first first female Michigan Circuit Judge in 1941, she sponsored Women’s Lawyers Association picnics in Rouge Park complete with horseback riding and archery.

​In 1962, the Army asked for a 50 year lease to continue, and expand, the base. The Parks & Recreation Department rejected the lease and the missiles were decommissioned in 1963. All but one of the buildings were removed except for one north of Joy Road that became the park’s West District Office. The Friends of Rouge Park held some of its very first meetings there.​ It closed in the early 2000s, but is currently being renovated to be used for offices for the General Services Department, and hopefully some of the space will be set aside for offices for non-profit organizations, including the Friends of Rouge Park.