Woodbridge Historic District

01 / The story of this place

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The neighborhood takes its name from William Woodbridge, who served as governor of Michigan from 1840 to 1841 and owned the large farm that much of the area was later built on. Most of Woodbridge's houses went up starting around 1870, as Detroit's streetcar lines opened the area to development and small Victorian cottages, then grander homes, filled in the blocks between what is now Midtown and Corktown. It earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, with its boundaries expanded in 1997 and 2008 as more of the surrounding blocks were recognized. The neighborhood nearly lost large chunks of itself twice: once as Detroit cleared nearby areas after World War Two, and again in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Wayne State University began buying up and demolishing houses for campus expansion, a push that residents fought off by organizing a Citizens District Council. That resistance is a big reason Woodbridge still has one of Detroit's largest intact collections of Victorian-era homes today.

1. Named for Michigan governor William Woodbridge, whose farm once covered the area
2. Development began around 1870 as a streetcar suburb
3. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980
4. Residents organized in the late 1970s and 1980s to stop Wayne State from demolishing houses