historical marker The area that would become Delray was first
platted as Belgrade in 1836. Most of the settlement lay in
Springwells Township, with the rest across the River Rouge in
Ecorse Township.
Fort Wayne was built in 1843 on the Detroit River at the foot of what is now Livernois Avenue to protect against a potential British attack from Canada. The area was renamed "Del Rey" on October 14, 1851, at the suggestion of resident Augustus D. Burdeno, a
Mexican–American War veteran who had encountered a village named
Molino del Rey ("King's Mill") while serving in Mexico. The settlement, by then anglicised to "Delray," received its own post office on February 8, 1870, which remained opened until 1970. In 1889, Delray was the site of the
Detroit International Exposition and Fair, a combined industrial expo and agricultural fair designed to show off the rising economic prominence of Detroit, whose population of 206,000 made it the nation's 15th largest city. The expo's main building, located on the riverfront west of Fort Wayne, was designed by architect
Louis Kamper, and featured of exhibition space. The fair was a resounding success, drawing 300,000 attendees, which prompted officials to make the expo an annual affair, but declining attendance ended the event by 1894. In 1895, Delray's era of
heavy industry began when the
Solvay Process Company, drawn by the area's underground salt deposits, cleared the Detroit International Exposition site and opened a chemical plant to manufacture
soda ash. Despite the economic uptick, Delray's 15,000 inhabitants still lacked serviceable water, sewage, fire, and lighting infrastructure, and sought civic improvements via either
incorporation or annexation by Detroit. On October 26, 1897, the
Wayne County Board of Supervisors authorized the incorporation of Delray as a
village by a vote of 25–19. By 1900, Delray had become a magnet of immigration from Eastern Europe, drawn by the village's job opportunities. Hungarian immigrants predominated, so much so that by 1911, the
Detroit Free Press estimated their population as 5,000 and referred to Delray as a Hungarian colony. Newspapers frequently reported on Hungarian immigrants living in overcrowded rooming houses, engaging in crime, and frequenting Delray's saloons, which numbered 33 at the turn of the century. Detroit immediately sought to improve the newly acquired area's infrastructure; for example, Delray had only one paved street, River Road (quickly renamed West Jefferson Avenue), Woodmere had no sewage system, and the former Springwells Township tract lacked street lighting. In the 1920s, Delray's industrial base continued to grow. In 1922,
Fisher opened an
auto body factory at the southwest corner of Fort Street and West End Street. Directly east, the Detroit Union Produce Terminal opened in 1929, serving as a food distribution center which spread over and had of railroad track. Two miles west of Delray,
Ford completed its
River Rouge Plant in 1928, which employed 85,000 workers at its peak. After World War II, many residents moved to the suburbs, following the
broader trend in both Detroit and the nation. By 1950, Delray's population dropped to 17,000. With the neighborhood's future looking grim, the Detroit City Planning Commission adopted the plan that Delray's future was to be purely industrial, spurring outrage from longtime residents. Using data from the
1980 census, the
Detroit Free Press calculated that Delray had the highest rates of serious crime, malicious destruction of property, and residential fires of Detroit's 51 subcommunities, as well as the lowest percentage of residents to have attended college. The General Motors Fleetwood body plant closed in 1987, eliminating more than 3,000 jobs.
Hungarian population in 2022 In the early 20th Century the Delray-
Springwells area served as the "
Little Hungary" of Detroit and Michigan's Hungarian culture was centered in that community. The first wave of Hungarian refugees came to the U.S. in order to escape the
Austro-Hungarian Empire's political issues. In 1904, a society to establish a Hungarian Lutheran church had about 60 members, There were also plans to establish a Catholic church, but by 1905 the Hungarians had difficulty agreeing on a final site. Later that year the
Holy Cross Hungarian Church, a Hungarian Catholic church, opened in Delray. By 1911, about 5,000 Hungarians lived in Delray. In 1907, some Hungarians in Delray and
Wyandotte who feared a lack of work returned to Hungary. After
World War I a second wave of Hungarian refugees arrived, who emigrated due to religious and political reasons. Hungary had been reduced in size so many Magyars were escaping discrimination, intimidation and deprivation in the conquered lands of the former enemies of Hungary, often because of the roles they had played in the war. They selected Detroit because the automobile plants paid high wages. The exception was an area on Barnes and Medina Streets called "Magyar Negyed" where the immigrants mainly originated from
Sarud in
Heves County. Beynon wrote that the residents preserved "the peculiar customs and, to some extent, the costumes of the home village." Various Hungarian social clubs including athletic, altar, dramatic, sick benefit and insurance, singing (
Dalárdák), and social clubs were formed. Each club included a membership and a wider group of adherents or
pártolók. Beynon wrote that "Practically every Hungarian of Detroit who has not broken away entirely from the people of his own nationality is connected in some way with one or more of these societies or clubs."
Kossuth Day was celebrated in Delray. Beynon argued that due to Delray's fragmentation among many different wards it was "not possible to determine from the population statistics published by the
Bureau of the Census either the number of Hungarians resident within the colony or the population which these form of the total Hungarian population of Detroit." Using the
Detroit Board of Education's Detroit City Census, Beynon concluded that in 1925, 45.46% of Detroit's Hungarian population lived in Delray. From January 1, 1927, to March 11, 1932, the Wayne County Juvenile Court received 462 complaints filed against Hungarian boys, with a total of 380 boys involved. Of those boys, 140 were from the Delray Hungarian colony. One wave of Hungarians arrived after the end of
World War II. Another wave of Hungarians escaped the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956, causing more to arrive in Delray. The construction of
Interstate 75 in the mid-1960s destroyed large parts of Delray and divided the community into two pieces. Middle and working class Hungarians moved to
Allen Park,
Lincoln Park,
Melvindale, and
Riverview. The Holy Cross parish school closed. The Holy Cross Hungarian Church was scheduled to observe its 75th anniversary on September 17, 2000. By August of that year, renovations and polishing were underway. ==Education==