DETROIT – Over the course of its more than 320 years, there have been many urban legends and myths regarding Detroit.
As Michigan’s largest city -- and one that has repeatedly caught the attention of the nation at large -- there’s a lot of gossip and half-truths spoken about Detroit. From conspiracies about Jimmy Hoffa, to the Nain Rouge Demon of the Strait, to Belle Isle’s lady in white, the city has a lot of folklore.
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One of the most common and repeated claims was that the Detroit River was once so polluted that it lit on fire. It’s so common that it even got mentioned in the 1994 film “The Crow.” But did that happen?
While it wasn’t common for rivers to become so polluted that they lit on fire, it’s still a thing that happened.
And you don’t need to travel too far from the Motor City to find one of the most notorious river fires. The Cuyahoga River that flows into Lake Erie outside Cleveland, Ohio was so polluted that it famously caught fire more than a dozen times between 1868 and 1970.
As Cleveland grew into a large industrial and manufacturing city, the river became more and more polluted. At one point, it was seen as the most polluted river in the United States. The roughly 25-mile stretch between Akron and Cleveland was incapable of sustaining any natural life.
Time magazine in 1969 described the Cuyahoga River as having “chocolate-brown” water that “oozes rather than flows.” It looked less like a waterway and more like something Augustus Gloop would fall into.
When the Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969, the outcry led to the creation of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency. That river fire is also responsible for the urban legend that Lake Erie was so polluted that it caught fire.
Both the Buffalo River and the Chicago River have repeatedly caught fire. There is a long history of industrial pollution and indiscriminate dumping that has caused several rivers and waterways to catch fire, so it’s not impossible that the Detroit River wouldn’t also be on that list, right?
I mean, Zug Island’s actual history sounds like someone just made up a bunch of environmental and industrial tragedies and assigned them to a single place. We put an IndyCar/Formula 1 race track on Belle Isle in 1992 (!!!), well after we as a society were concerned about our environmental impact. If anything, it seems downright likely that the Detroit River has lit on fire.
But, did the Detroit River ever catch on fire?
In a word, no. In a much more meaningful and literal way, also no.
The Detroit River did not catch on fire. You could argue that we Michiganders respect our state’s most valuable resource and took care of our waterways to help keep our ecosystems healthy, and that our state didn’t need rules and regulations in place for us to sustain the largest fresh watershed on the planet.
The Detroit River did not catch on fire. We’re better than that, unlike Ohioans. It was the River Rouge that became so polluted that the river itself caught fire where it flows into the Detroit River. Completely different thing.
Why the River Rouge caught fire
Dr. John Hartig, with the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, wrote in his 2010 book “Burning Rivers” that as cities grew in the first half of the 1900s, pollution was seen as a “sign of prosperity.” It wasn’t a nuisance, it was seen as a good thing. It was proof the city was doing something and anyone who pushed for less damaging manufacturing practices was quickly labeled as hating progress.
At Detroit’s peak in the 1940s, it’s estimated that industrial companies were dumping six million gallons of waste into the Detroit and Rouge rivers every year.
In October 1969, just a few months after that summer’s Cuyahoga River fire, the River Rouge caught fire after a worker dropped a torch into the river. The flames were reportedly 50 feet tall and could be seen from I-75.
Similar to a grease fire, fire crews couldn’t spray water on the fire to put it out. The Detroit Fire Department crews that reported to the scene could only extinguish fires outside of the blazing river, which they had to just let burn out.
The Rouge and Cuyahoga fires weren’t the only river fires that year. The Buffalo and Chicago rivers also caught fire in 1969.
Things are better now, right?
President Richard Nixon proposed a federal agency that would include pollution control and pesticide programs, and would consolidate other environmental responsibilities from other agencies. Within six months, the EPA was up and running.
In 1972, the Clean Water Act was signed into law by Nixon. It significantly limited how companies could dump industrial waste. To this day, it’s one of the most influential environmental laws ever established. It was expanded in 1977 and 1987.
In addition to federal protections, most states and municipalities have their own regulatory bodies that help ensure the quality of water. Michigan created the Department of Environmental Quality in 1995 by then-Gov. John Engler. Each governor since has made their own tweaks and changes, and the department eventually evolved into the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.
The Detroit, Cuyahoga, Rouge, Chicago and Buffalo rivers have all been revived over the years. They no longer resemble Yoo-Hoo and nature has since returned. Recently, the Detroit Riverfront was named the best riverwalk in the country.
More: History of Detroit