  Fighting Island  Fighting Island | |
| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | Detroit River |
| Coordinates | 42°13′18″N83°07′12″W / 42.22167°N 83.12000°W |
| Area | 6.06 km2 (2.34 sq mi) |
| Highest elevation | 174 m (571 ft) |
| Administration | |
Canada | |
| Territory | Ontario |
| County | Essex |
| City | LaSalle |
Fighting Island is a 610-hectare (1,500-acre) island in the Detroit River, and is the largest Canadian island in the river. It is part of the town of LaSalle, Ontario, Canada, opposite Wyandotte, Michigan, and downriver from Detroit and Windsor.
Originally populated by indigenous peoples, it was settled by the French during the 18th century, and has had numerous owners since then. The island took its name from the Indigenous artifacts that were first spotted on the island in 1810. [1]
The island was the site of a brief skirmish on February 24 and 25, 1838, during the Battle of Windsor, part of the Patriot War. [2]
In 1918, the land was bought by John B. Ford of the Michigan Alkali Company and was used as a location to deposit waste from their industrial plants which produced soda ash, lye and baking soda. [3] Nearly 15,000,000 m3 (20,000,000 cu yd) of high-pH waste was dumped on the island during its industrial history. [4] Michigan Alkali Company became Wyandotte Chemicals Corporation, which was subsequently bought by BASF, who are the current owners of the island. BASF embarked on a rehabilitation program which successfully removed the waste for proper disposal, and rebuilt the natural habitat of the island.[ citation needed ] A current program running on the island is used to teach elementary/secondary schools about biology and ecology.[ citation needed ]
The Detroit River is an international river in North America. The river, which forms part of the border between the U.S. state of Michigan and the Canadian province of Ontario, flows west and south for 24 nautical miles from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively referred to as Detroit–Windsor. The Ambassador Bridge, the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel, and the Michigan Central Railway Tunnel connect the cities.
Windsor is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly across from Detroit, Michigan, United States. Geographically located within but administratively independent of Essex County, it is the southernmost city in Canada and marks the southwestern end of the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city's population was 229,660 at the 2021 census, making it the third-most populated city in Southwestern Ontario, after London and Kitchener. This represents a 5.7 percent increase from Windsor's 2016 population census of 217,188. The Detroit–Windsor urban area is North America's most populous trans-border conurbation. Linking the Great Lakes Megalopolis, the Ambassador Bridge border crossing is the busiest commercial crossing on the Canada–United States border.
Wyandotte is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 25,058 at the 2020 census.
BASF SE, an initialism of its original name Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik, is a German multinational company and the largest chemical producer in the world. Its headquarters are located in Ludwigshafen, Germany.
The Ambassador Bridge is an international suspension bridge across the Detroit River that connects Detroit, Michigan, United States, with Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Opened in 1929, the toll bridge is the busiest international border crossing in North America in terms of trade volume, carrying more than 25% of all merchandise trade between the United States and Canada by value. A 2004 Border Transportation Partnership study showed that 150,000 jobs in the Detroit–Windsor region and US$13 billion in annual production depend on the Detroit–Windsor international border crossing.
Amherstburg is a town near the mouth of the Detroit River in Essex County, Ontario, Canada. In 1796, Fort Malden was established here, stimulating growth in the settlement. The fort has been designated as a National Historic Site.
The Battle of Windsor was a short-lived campaign in the eastern Michigan area of the United States and the Windsor area of Upper Canada. A group of men on both sides of the border, calling themselves "Patriots", formed small militias in 1837 with the intention of seizing the Southern Ontario peninsula between the Detroit and Niagara Rivers and extending American-style government to Canada. They based groups in Michigan at Fort Gratiot, Mount Clemens, Detroit, and Gibraltar. The Patriots were defeated by British and American government forces, respectively.
Walpole Island is an island and First Nation reserve in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the border between Ontario and Michigan in the United States. It is located in the mouth of the Saint Clair River on Lake Saint Clair, about 121 kilometres (75 mi) by road from Windsor, Ontario, and 124 kilometres (77 mi) from Detroit, Michigan.
Lake St. Clair is a freshwater lake that lies between the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Michigan. It was named in 1679 by French Catholic explorers after Saint Clare of Assisi, on whose feast day they first saw the lake.
The Leblanc process was an early industrial process for making soda ash used throughout the 19th century, named after its inventor, Nicolas Leblanc. It involved two stages: making sodium sulfate from sodium chloride, followed by reacting the sodium sulfate with coal and calcium carbonate to make sodium carbonate. The process gradually became obsolete after the development of the Solvay process.
Downriver is a region of the Detroit metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Michigan. Most definitions of the region include the communities in Wayne County, south of Detroit, along the western shore of the Detroit River.
SS Columbia is the last remaining excursion steamship from the turn of the 20th century in existence, the second to last being her running mate and sister ship SS Ste. Claire which burned in 2018. Both were designed by Frank E. Kirby and Louis O. Keil, interior designer. Columbia was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992. As of 2019, the vessel is docked at Silo City in Buffalo, New York while work is being done to rehabilitate it. However as of February 2024 the restoration group's website was offline and archived images showed no updates since 2021. In March 2024 a local news and events site described the vessel as "at risk" and their social media pages were offline.
The Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge is the only international wildlife refuge in North America. Established in 2001 and managed jointly by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service, it is located in a major metropolitan area. The Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge is one of over 540 National Wildlife Refuges managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service within the Department of the Interior. It occupies 7.88 square miles (20.41 km2) of scattered property but has drawn boundaries for further expansion.
The Michigan Central Railway Tunnel is a railroad tunnel under the Detroit River connecting Detroit, Michigan, in the United States with Windsor, Ontario, in Canada. The U.S. entrance is south of Porter and Vermont streets near Rosa Parks Boulevard. The Canadian entrance is south of Wyandotte Street West between Cameron and Wellington Avenues. It was built by the Detroit River Tunnel Company for the Canada Southern Railway, leased by the Michigan Central Railroad and owned by the New York Central Railroad. The tunnel opened in 1910 and is still in use today by the CPKC Railway.
Captain John Baptiste Ford was an American industrialist and founder of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, now known as PPG Industries, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.
The Gordie Howe International Bridge, known during development as the Detroit River International Crossing and the New International Trade Crossing, is a cable-stayed international bridge across the Detroit River, currently under construction. The crossing will connect Detroit, Michigan, United States of America, and Windsor, Ontario, Canada, by linking Interstate 75 in Michigan with Highway 401 in Ontario. The bridge will provide uninterrupted freeway traffic flow, as opposed to the current configuration with the nearby Ambassador Bridge that connects to city streets on the Ontario side. The bridge is named after Canadian ice hockey player Gordie Howe, whose celebrated career included 25 years with the Detroit Red Wings, and who died two years before construction began.
Wyandotte Terminal Railroad was incorporated in the State of Michigan, United States of America, on September 14, 1904. It ceased operations as a railroad in 1982.
Powder House Island (also known as Dynamite Island) is an artificial island on the lower Detroit River in southeast Michigan, directly adjacent to the Canada–United States border. It was constructed in the late 1880s by the Dunbar & Sullivan Company to store explosives during their dredging of the Livingstone Channel, with the purpose of circumventing an 1880 court order forbidding the company to store explosives on nearby Fox Island.
The Wyandotte Alkalis were a minor league baseball team based in Wyandotte, Michigan. In 1912 and 1913, the Alkalis, named for a locally based company, played exclusively as members of the Class D level Border League, winning the 1912 league championship. Wyandotte hosted home minor league games at Alkali Park.