Mapping Detroit

Detroit street addresses underwent a change in 1921. When I looked at the 1920 census record for my Lehmann relatives in Detroit, Google maps made it look like their house was in Indian Village when I put in the house number. Didn't seem quite right to me - a family whose parents were Polish immigrants with a bunch of kids, living in a fancy neighborhood like that? So I checked the Detroit City Directory for 1920/1921.


The 1712 was their address under the old numbering system. When I put the new one, 6766, into Google maps, I got the real location.



Their house was the one on the right side, closer to the forefront of this screenshot. As you can see not much is left on this block. Unfortunately, this is the case for a lot of Detroit. I did some more research on the house and learned it was built in 1912. 

By 1930 my great-grandfather Frank was deceased and my great-grandmother Mary was head of the household in the 1930 census. They lived at 7496 Stockton Street in Detroit, which is nothing but a vacant lot now. There was a school, called Ulysses S. Grant Elementary, across the street from their house. The school building is still there, but like many others in Detroit, the school closed up shop awhile back because of declining enrollment. I found some history of the school here: http://detroiturbex.com/content/schools/grant/index.html

If my grandma was living right across the street from Grant Elemetary in 1930, chances are good that that was her school! She was 11 years old in 1930 and according to the census was attending school at the time.

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