Detroit may have been founded in 1701, but it wasn't until 1835 that it would get its first dedicated city hall.
It's important to remember that for much of Detroit's history, it was so small, it didn't really have enough governmental business to merit a dedicated city hall. In its earliest days, Detroit operated under military rule, so the military commandant acted as governor, and his house served as the center of government. From 1701 to 1760, this French commandant’s house would have been located at approximately what is now the northwest corner of West Jefferson and Griswold Street.
Around 1778, under British rule, this center of power moved to what was known as the Government House, on the southwest corner of West Jefferson and Griswold. After the city burned to the ground in 1805, it moved to the Council House, where it stayed until 1826. Then operations moved to the Military Hall at Fort Street and what is now Washington Boulevard for a year before the Military Hall would change locations every few years: to the corner of East Larned Street and Woodward Avenue from 1827 to 1833, and then to East Congress Street and Woodward from 1833 to 1839.
By 1835, Detroit had just under 5,000 residents, according to the territorial census conducted a year earlier, but was on its way to almost 7,000 in 1836. That kind of growth led to the decision that Detroit finally needed something official for handling its municipal business - but it wouldn’t be all council meetings and city business.
Detroit’s first City Hall
The first City Hall was completed Nov. 18, 1835 - more than a year before Michigan became a state - on the east side of Woodward and what is now Cadillac Square, then known as Michigan Grand Avenue until 1885. It measured 50 feet by 100 feet and cost $14,747 to build, the equivalent of about $470,000 in 2025 money, when adjusted for inflation. That kind of expenditure for a hamlet of Detroit’s size meant that it couldn’t be just a City Hall. The lower floor was used as a market for meat sellers, with the city’s business conducted on the second. To the immediate east of the city hall was Central Market, full of sheds and stalls for vendors.
This dual purpose would continue until 1856, when the butchers moved out of the ground floor to give the city’s government more room. In 1860, the City hired architect John Schaffer to design a new shed for the farmers and butchers to hawk their wares from, and the market continued to serve Detroiters..
But given that Detroit’s growing population was nearing 40,000, it was clear that this cozy but confined city hall was not going to cut it.
Architect James Anderson was hired to design Detroit a new city hall that was more appropriate for the city that Detroit aimed to be. Plans were ready to go in 1861, but construction was delayed because of restrictions on materials during the Civil War and by lawsuits from landowners and others who wanted the new city hall built on Grand Circus Park instead of Woodward Avenue. In 1867, the contract for the building was awarded to N. Osborn & Co. of Rochester, N.Y., for $379,578 (about $8.9 million in 2025), and its cornerstone laid Aug. 6, 1868. The new City Hall was finally dedicated July 4, 1871. The Common Council had its final session in the old City Hall on May 31, 1871, and moved into its new home on July 18.
And from that moment on, the city’s first city hall would become aedificium non grata.
The city’s Board of Education leased the building, and the evicted butchers said they wanted back in to turn it into a meat market again. There was discussion about turning the building into a library, but it was decided that it would be cheaper and easier to just build a new structure elsewhere instead. As all these debates played out at council meetings and on the streets, the Detroit Free Press took turns taking swings at it.
From the Feb. 11, 1872, edition of the Free Press: “The rats are eating up the floors in the old City Hall.”
Then on May 5, 1872: “The rats are undermining the foundation of the old City Hall.”
And on May 25, 1872, it wrote that “some heartless wretch has been stealing the blinds from the old City Hall. He is heartless because he didn’t carry off the whole building.”
Then on June 10, 1872, the rats apparently weren’t enough to move the needle, so it wrote, “The pigeons and martins have taken possession of the old City Hall.”
Finally, that August, Alderman Smith R. Woolley brought forth a proposal to tear the old whipping boy down, and a request for proposals was issued. When the time came to review the bids a month later, there was only one: H.W. Buckingham offered $1,025 for the salvage rights to the building - about $28,000 in 2025 - and said he’d have it demolished within 60 days.
Doors, windows and the like were put up for sale.
The last days of Detroit’s first City Hall
After taking shots at the building for so long, the Free Press’ tone seemed to shift from torch-and-pitchfork to wistful-and-nostalgic.
"The work of demolition has been begun upon the old City Hall, the venerable drab-colored building that has stood for 30 years in the center of Michigan Grand Avenue," the Free Press wrote Sept. 27, 1872. "The venerable pile has seen the star of empire move westward year after year, till the vast unkempt fields that lay before it, with their marshes and meadows alternating, were laid out in streets and alleys, and built up with a wondrous beauty and array of residences and business blocks, and a city of a great multitude of people swarmed about its portals day after day. And now, like an old horse, or an older 'one-hoss shay,' the old building has been superseded and doomed to pass away."
"The whole superstructure of the once proud old City Hall has been leveled to the ground and carted away by the piecemeal and wagon load, except a portion of the rear wall," the Free Press wrote Nov. 8, 1872. "Sic transit res antiquas," which translated to “thus passes the old things.”
On Nov. 22, 1872, the paper wrote that "the last stone of the rear wall of the old City Hall will be taken out today, and nought will remain of the glory and greatness of this, the seat of the city's authority for many years.”
Buckingham’s promise of flattening the building within 60 days was met, but not without it trying to exact payback on the wreckers. On Oct. 5, 1872, timbers gave way and the roof collapsed, badly injuring a demolition worker. The victim was German, the Free Press reported the next morning, but he was “suffering such pain when taken away that he could neither give his name nor residence.”
Excitement over opening the cornerstone of the city’s first city hall was doused when it was determined that there was no cornerstone, or at least, no stone with any contents inside.
Market days
Following the demolition, the area east of Campus Martius continued to serve as a market. In 1879, a new, three-story, 300-foot-long Central Market Building was erected where the first city hall once stood. In addition to food stalls, the building was home to the city’s Board of Health, the Park Commission and the Poor Commission, and the Superior Court was located on its third floor.
However, the thriving success of Eastern and Western markets led the city’s Common Council to close Central Market, decreeing that it was both in the way of the busy downtown, attracting rats and unnecessary given the other options. This led to Central Market being shuttered in 1894, and the Central Market Building was demolished in 1899.
The 1860 shed from Central Market was relocated to Belle Isle, where it was then used as a picnic shelter and horse stable for years before being left to rot. The Henry Ford saved it from demolition in 2003 and, 19 years later, unveiled the restored structure following a $2 million effort, saving the last tangible piece of Central Market for future generations.
Eventually, the City erected a monument on the site of the first city hall, known as the Cadillac Chair, but was removed in 1941.