Southfield Tutors

About Southfield

Southfield is one of Metro Detroit’s biggest cities, and is known as the office capital of the Midwest. The landscape here features tall skyscrapers in stark contrast to the more suburban or agricultural feel of some of its neighboring cities. From its earliest history the area where the many office buildings stand and thousands commute to each day was already a comparatively busy meeting point. In the mid 1600s it was an area where many lands of many differing tribes converged including the Hurons, Iroquois, Miamis, Ojibwas, Ottagomies, Ottawas, Pottawatomies and Twigtnees.

It was the French who first seized ownership of this area, Fort Pontchartain was established by explorer and adventurer Antoine Laumet de Lamothe Cadillac in 1701 after being granted permission by the French Prime Minister. This European post was the very beginning of Detroit, as we know it today. According to Southfield tutors, there is some discrepancy in the actual name of the French explorer, who allegedly added “Lamothe Cadillac” to his name in order to sound more regal, and was not of noble birth, as his name would suggest.

When the area was sought to be colonized, Governor Lewis Cass surveyed the lands and divided up the townships. All told there were 36 sections divvied, four of which were marked as Indian Reservations. In early Oakland County, both southern townships were first known as Bloomfield. It was in 1830 that the citizens petitioned and the south half of Bloomfield became known as Southfield. A road was built through Southfield called Shiawassee, and people started to relocate into the area. A lot of early settlers that arrived via the Erie Canal hailed from New York.

Southfield Township became a city in the mid 1950s after a small group of local residents pooling their own money started the “Save our Southfield Committee” with $500 to finance the filing fees. As a city it now has a Municipal Court, and the first Judge was Judge Clarence A. Reid, Jr. who had previously been justice of the peace for Southfield Township. Other important city roles were filled and important buildings were erected, including fires stations, civic buildings, schools, churches and libraries, and the city steadily grew. When the city was originally incorporated it had just fewer than 30,000 residents now the residents number over 70,000 with an additional 100,000 commuting to work in the city every day. According to Southfield tutors its early main income came from agriculture, and now there are many white-collar jobs in the city, which continues to thrive with steady investment and employment opportunities.