History

The DeTour Historical Museum (906-297-3231) is located next to the DeTour Drummond Ferry Dock, on Elizabeth St.  It has seasonal operational hours every day, and is manned by knowledgable volunteers.   Many historical exhibits including maritime history of the area and the 3rd-order Freznel Lens from the Lighthouse is on display.
Scroll down for more Photos.


The Eastern Tip of the U.P. has been an important area for natives, settlers, and traders for hundreds of years.  It has been named "Giwideonaning" by the Chippewa, which loosely translates to "point we go around in a canoe" and then similarly named  "detour" or "the turn" in the river by french fur tradesman. Some of the early European explorers included Father Marquette, Louis Joliet, Antoine De La Cadillac and Sieur De La Salle.  

DeTour Village is only a little over century mark, although the DeTour Township has sesquicentennial bragging rights.   DeTour Village was incorporated in 1899.

DeTour Township was organized on March 28th, 1850 under the name Warner Township until March 1899, when it was incorporated as the Village of DeTour. In the early 1800's and 1900's DeTour was a mill town. Commercial fishing was also a growing industry that still survives to this day.

Some History Making Highlights: (from various sources)

- 1543 Jesuit Priests visit the area noting the fishing, furs (and uncrowded snowmobile trails ;)
- 1599 France claims territory
- 1620 Etienne Brulé explores the St. Mary's River
- 1673 Jesuit Marquette, fur trader Jolliet leave St. Ignace to explore the "Messissipi."
- 1761 Britain claims territory
- 1798 Lt. Landmann builds fort on St. Joseph Island (across the river to the north)
- 1808 Dual between John Campbell (killed) and Redford Crawford over a "bottle".
- 1816 British complete a new fort on Drummond Island overlooking the DeTour Passage
- 1820 British vacate Drummond Island
- 1826 Visited by General Cass, who found indians trading with a lone white settler.
- 1847 First Lighthouse established on DeTour's Lighthouse Point
- 1850 Detour Township organized as Warner Township
- 1855 First Lock in Sault Ste. Marie
- 1856 Name reverts to Detour
            (and then to DeTour in 1953 and DeTour Village in 1961)
- 1880 DeTour's First school a log cabin, kids schooled until about 6th grade
           (new buildings in 1903, 1915, 1956 and 1961 and expansion in 2002)
- 1899 Detour Village incorporated
- 1904 Father Bateski, the "Fighting Priest of DeTour" arrives
- 1914 DeTour School setup as a 12 grade school
- 1931 New DeTour Reef Lighthouse built
- 1974 DeTour Village Water Plant opens
- 1985 DeTour Marina Opens, followed by 1991 expansion
- 2004 DeTour Village Water Plant $1M upgrade, DeTour School Completes and expansion and new Library.  
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Historical books of the DeTour area and the DeTour Centennial Yearbook can be found at many

Some articles, poems written about DeTour.

 Come to DeTour        By Roy R. Fuller

 Along Lake Huron’s northern shore

Runs State Road M-one-thirth-four,

A ribbon over every hill

From “seven-five” to Cedarville.

 

The scenic roadway then extends

to DeTour Village, where it ends,

But there the corner signs will show

The street becomes Ontario.

 

The village has a grocery store,

A bank, a school, and much, much more.

Motels and cabins, churches too,

and restaurants to name a few.

 

A lumber yard, a party store,

An ice cream stand, with treats galore,

A harbor where small pleasure boats

Can tie up to a dock that floats.

 

For fisherman, and hunters too,

There’s lots of action here for you,

and at a village store you’ll find

Your sporting goods of any kind.

 

But those who prefer not to be

Involved in much activity,

May count the seagulls as they fly

Or sit and watch the ships pass by.

 

So, if you want to play or rest,

There is a place to do it best

Just come to DeTour and explore

A village near Lake Huron’s shore.

 

Written Sept. 16, 1987 R.R. Fuller

 

 

 

DeTour, The Village Beautiful

DeTour, ideal summer resort and playground, is the first Upper Peninsula community to greet the waterway traveler from the lower lakes. It is situated at the Strait of the DeTour, where the magnificent St. Mary's joins Lake Huron. The name was given it hundreds of years ago by the old French voyagers as " the turning-point" to Mackinac. DeTour was up and coming long before Detroit or Chicago were dreamed of.

St. Mary's has been called the river of a thousand islands. These islands cluster around DeTour and extend for miles up stream, ranging from Drummond with its 75,000 acres to tiny points barely large enough to serve as foundations for a lighthouse. St. Mary's and the near-by streams and lakes, including bass, trout, perch, pickerel, pike, muskelonge, and even whitefish will take a hook; while deer, bear, moose and smaller game are to be found in the woods around DeTour and on the larger islands.

There are excellent docking facilities for smaller power boats as well as for freighters and the passenger steamers plying between this port, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee and the Soo. DeTour, Potagannising Bay and Old Ford Drummond are favorite anchoring grounds for yachtsmen from all over the Great Lakes.

DeTour may be reached from a fine highway through diversified farm and woodland scenes and skirting Caribou Lake. The latter is in the heart of the woods, five miles west of DeTour and it is famous for it's long, clean sand beach and the readiness of it's big pike to take a chance. Trolling for pike, bass, and pickerel in Caribou Lake is the acme of bliss for many vacationers. They are seldom disappointed. Hundreds of delightful campsites in the village and along the river shores were at one time free. DeTour is 50 miles from Sault Ste. Marie and 73 miles from St. Ignace.

The local water supply is absolutely pure and hay fever germs have no chance whatever in the cool summer breezes. All needs of the tourist are abundantly cared for, spiritual and physical, by churches of several denominations and a number of general stores. Daily bus, mail and train connection is maintained via the Soo.

DeTour is vastly different from the average resorting place - an oasis of tranquility and relaxation in a weary world, and beautiful enough to be an abiding place even for the Great Spirit as the Huron Indians fancied long ago.

DeTour welcomes you to her hospitable shores, where you may pitch your tent, swim, hike, fish, drive over many miles of forest mainland or islands, go boating in the channels or lazily watch the stately ships slide by on the busiest waterway in the world.

Welcome to DeTour and Happiness!

Old Detroit Young DeTour
By John T. Nevill
Free Press Special Writer

DeTour Michigan - So Detroit is preparing to celebrate its 250th birthday?
You'll have to pardon DeTour for greeting the news with a polite yawn. It's hard to impress this village that was visited by white men-Jesuit Fathers, Raymbouit and Jorues - in 1543. That was 158 years before Cadillac landed on the site of what is now Detroit.

DeTour's history as a permanent settlement goes back 300 years. Settler's babies were nearly 50 years old before Monsieur Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac showed up with 25 canoes to found the fort that became Detroit.

DeTour counts as comparative late visitors Fr. Marquette, who dropped in 1668, and La Salle, who was aboard hill ill-fated vessel, Griffin, in 1679. DeTour nests in the evergreens at the easternmost tip of Michigan's fabled Upper Peninsula at the mouth of the beautiful St. Mary's River, one of the most vital waterways of the world. By all standards it should have become an important industrial town.

But DeTour is insignificantly small and embarrassingly unknown, a fate, for which it holds Detroit indirectly responsible. Time was, when DeTour benefiting by its then flourishing lumber and fishing industries, was a sizable community, having twice the permanent residents it has today.

By the turn of the century, however, lumbering bowed out as a big business - But a thriving tourist business replaced it. DeTour became the first tourist haven of the Upper Peninsula - its tourist business was all water borne.

The village was so busy looking after its tourists that it failed to hear the loud explosion coming from horseless carriages in Detroit. When the highway touring replaced water travel DeTour was left high and dry.

But last summer, the State Highway Department completed the Cedarville-DeTour section of the new Scenic Highway. Plans call for extending this from DeTour to the Soo.

So, DeTour has hopes. Autos made in that young upstart of a community down the lakes may once again put DeTour on the map.