Driving Horses for Sale in Chelsea MI, Plymouth MI

About River Rouge, MI

The small settlement incorporated as a village in 1899 within Ecorse Township. In 1922 as the city of Detroit expressed interest in annexing land in the township, the Village of River Rouge incorporated as a city on April 3 to avoid being annexed. A month later Detroit completed annexation of land in the township immediately to the west of River Rouge. One of the most important historical associations with River Rouge is its relationship to a Great Lakes freighter, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald , which sank in 1975 in a fierce storm in Lake Superior, with the loss of all 29 crew. The ship was constructed in 1958 at the Great Lakes Engineering Works in River Rouge and was the largest ship on the lakes at the time.