It was called a city of magic, and many believed the best was yet to come.
For a week in July 1951, Detroit put down its tools to reflect on its magnificence. The city that in four decades transformed from an unremarkable Midwestern community into a prosperous urban powerhouse was celebrating its 250th birthday.
A million people lined Woodward for a parade. A musical written for the occasion, “City of Freedom,” ran for 11 days. The city marked the anniversary by creating the Detroit Historical Museum and launching a fundraising drive for Cobo Hall.
“The magic of Detroit is the way it sprang apparently full grown, fully prepared, into a world-wide metropolitan eminence, virtually overnight, after two centuries of somnolent obscurity,” John C. Manning, editor of The Detroit Times, wrote in the anniversary’s program.
Detroit was something new and hopeful. Its 185 war plants cranked out arms that propelled the Allies to victory in World War II. Its population soared because of a promise: Sacrifice your body to the assembly line, make enough to realize the American dream.
But as Mayor Albert Cobo lit a cake with 250 candles and sent balloons into the summer sky, Detroit was already in decline. President Harry Truman capped the celebration with a speech outside City Hall assuring residents that layoffs rippling through the city were a “temporary situation.”
They weren’t. The nation was on the brink of a recession. The auto industry was consolidating. Racial tensions were festering. The slow descent that ended 62 years later in the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy had begun.
Many of the forces that propelled Detroit to such heights — autos, the might of unions, migration from the South and inexpensive housing — also contributed to its fall.
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