Hamtramck_web

S urrounded on all sides by the City of Detroit, Hamtramck, Michigan, a city in Wayne County, was named after a French Revolutionary War hero, Colonel Jean Francois Hamtramck, and originally settled by French émigrés from Quebec. By the early 1900s, it was a German-American farming village of about 500 people. Then, with the opening of the Dodge Brothers automo- bile plant in 1914, Hamtramck attracted large numbers of Polish laborers and its popu- lation swelled from about 3,600 in 1910 to over 46,000 by 1920. Hamtramck became a city in 1922, to protect itself from being annexed by Detroit. However, legal separation from its bigger, sister city could not prevent its economic fate from being intertwined with it, as well as with that of the American automobile industry. The decline of that industry, which had kept Hamtramck’s economy healthy through much of the 20th century, coupled with the Great Recession of the early 21st, has had a tremendous impact on the entire southeast Michigan region–Detroit and Hamtramck, included. In fact, both metropolises are considered to be “distressed com- HAMTRAMCK, MICHIGAN THE CITY WITHIN A CITY MICHIGAN