Father Marquette National Memorial
Explore Fayette Historic Townsite, a former iron-making town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Explore Fort Wilkins and the Copper Harbor Lighthouses in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to learn about people and events that shaped this region.
Explore the state’s 19th-century logging era at Hartwick Pines Logging Museum.
The museum has exhibits on everything from the CCC's role in planting trees and building roads to its impact on the environment.
The Mann House and its contents illustrate typical family life in the 1880s.
The house is under extensive renovation and is closed to the public. Ulysses S. Grant and his wife, Julia Dent Grant, lived in this Detroit house from 1849 to 1850.
The Michigan Iron Industry Museum is a great place to learn about the history of Michigan's iron industry.
Sanilac Petroglyphs Historic State Park protects and interprets Michigan’s largest known collection of early Native American teachings carved in stone.
The Tawas Point Lighthouse is a fascinating attraction for maritime buffs and an exciting destination for birdwatchers.
This secret network aided thousands of people on their journey to freedom.
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The Julia and Ulysses S. Grant Home is an 1836 two-story Greek Revival house that was originally located near present-day Lafayette Park on Detroit's near lower east side. Ulysses S. Grant, the Civil War General and U. S. President, and his wife Julia Dent Grant made it their home when he was stationed in Detroit from 1849 to 1850. The house was preserved and moved to the Michigan State Fairgrounds in 1936, where it was operated as a museum into the mid-twentieth century.
When the State of Michigan transferred the fairgrounds to the Michigan Land Bank Fast Track Authority in 2012, state legislators made moving and preserving the house a condition of the transfer. As the state's history agency, the Michigan History Center (part of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources), was given responsibility for preserving and interpreting the house.
In August 2020, with funding from the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, the house was moved from the fairgrounds to its new, permanent location in Detroit's Eastern Market, where it awaits rehabilitation.
The Michigan History Foundation is leading the effort to secure the funding needed to fully rehabilitate the home for use as a historic site managed and maintained by the Black Bottom Archives. Learn how you can help.
The house's original 1836 location on East Fort Street was in the Black Bottom neighborhood that welcomed newcomers to the growing city of Detroit. By the 1920s, the neighborhood was one of the only areas where city officials and white residents allowed African Americans to live. Shut out from shopping and services downtown, the residents of Black Bottom built their own thriving residential and business community.
Black Bottom was destroyed for urban renewal and freeway development between the late 1950s and early 1970s and replaced by Lafayette Park and the Chrysler Freeway (I-375).Today, the Grant House is one of a few remaining residences from Black Bottom left in the city.
The following resources provide biographical information about the couple, and overviews of Ulysses' roles in the Civil War and as President of the United States.
Ulysses grew up in a northern abolitionist family in Ohio; Julia's family were slaveholders from Missouri. For a time after their stay in Detroit but before the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant enslaved and then freed William Jones. Julia enslaved at least four people - Eliza, Dan, Jules and John - throughout the Civil War. After the war, Grant was committed to reconstruction and the passing of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. For more information on Grant's connection to slavery, visit these resources:
Grant also had a complicated history with Native Americans. He generally believed in assimilationist policies that forced Indigenous communities to learn the ways of mainstream society, including farming, Christianity and the English language. His intentions were perhaps good, but the impact of these policies - and the military conflicts, violence, and efforts to eliminate Indigenous cultural practice and beliefs through Indian Schools - resulted in destruction of Native American lifeways and culture. Ely S. Parker (Donehogawa), an engineer and Seneca Indian, was on Grant's staff during the Civil War. As president, Grant appointed him to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs. For more information on Grant's American Indian policies and their short- and long-term impact, visit these resources:
Black Bottom Archives began collecting and sharing the stories of the Black Bottom neighborhood in 2015. Its work has included an online presence, oral history projects, community fellowships, neighborhood exhibitions and public gatherings that invite Detroiters of all ages to participate in preserving and passing down Black Detroit Stories. It nurtures a lineage of Black memory-keepers committed to honoring the past, documenting the present and shaping a liberated future.
This project will create its first physical space rooted in the city, where it can continue to deepen its connections to the communities it serves and amplify intergenerational storytelling, where elders, youth and everyone in between can share, learn and build together.