by Jeff Blakley Jean Taylor, in her book, The Villages of South Dade, wrote that in 1912, J.U. Free opened the People’s Telephone Company on the second floor of J.D. Redd’s dry cleaning shop. To establish his telephone company, J.U. … Continue reading →
By Jeff Blakley The Town of Homestead was incorporated on January 27, 1913 and Russell “Russ” Fleming Tatum was elected as its first mayor. The published histories of this area offer little or no information about who he was, though. … Continue reading →
In Part I of this article, I provided some of the history of the area that became Detroit before 1910. As can be seen on the relevant portion of the F.E.C. Railway map below, the Model Land Co. owned most … Continue reading →
by Jeff Blakley The Tatum Bros. Real Estate & Investment Co., which founded the town of Detroit in 1910, relentlessly promoted their property as a place where buyers could become wealthy practically overnight by growing tomatoes and other vegetables. However, … Continue reading →