In this episode of CuriosiD, listener Max Spayde asks the question:

Why is there a boat club and a yacht club on Belle Isle?

The short answer

The two clubs were each founded for different boat-centered sports. The Detroit Boat Club was founded as a rowing club—although many decades ago it developed a “pure” sailing program that’s motorless. And the Detroit Yacht Club was developed as a sailing organization that continued to build on its motor-powered sailing programs.

Belle Isle was an ideal setting for both because of its location on the Detroit River and its connection to the Great Lakes system.

Detroit Boat Club

The Detroit Boat Club was founded in 1839 after Detroit developer Edward Brush fell in love with rowing on a visit to the East Coast. It is the fifth oldest non-academic rowing clubs in the world and the second oldest in the country.

Rowing was the most popular sport in Detroit after the Civil War. There were more than 1,000 rowers in the city by the late 1870s with a boat house district that stretched from St. Aubin to McDougall. Hundreds of thousands of people would come to the river to watch rowing competitions.

Stephen Malboeuf is a rower at the Boat Club, its official archivist and its unofficial historian. He says at that time the sport wasn’t just for the wealthy.

“Both of the stove works—both the Detroit Stove Works and the Michigan Stove Works had boat clubs that were organized by their iron workers,” Malbouef said. “The railroads would have their employees…form boat clubs…and they’d compete in regular regattas.”

But that level of enthusiasm for rowing didn’t actually last that long, Malboeuf said.

“By the 1880s and as early as 1881 the rowers noticed that most of their spectators had abandoned the sport in favor of watching baseball.”

 The first professional baseball team was organized in Detroit in 1881. 

 “In 1879 You’ve got 30 clubs, and by 1893 you’re down to just two,” Malbouef said.

Detroit Yacht Club

The Detroit Yacht Club sets its founding in 1868 and its focus has always been sailing. Its early members are among the most notable names in the city’s history, including the Fords, Dodges, Scripps and Fishers.

The Yacht Club’s Mike Alberts says the DYC had two or three buildings before its current clubhouse. He says inventor Gar Wood was the commodore when the club built it in 1922 after Wood’s win at the Harmsworth Challenge Regatta in 1920 made him a rock star.  

Alberts says even though the Detroit Yacht Club was built by some of the automotive industry’s heavy hitters, boat racing was bigger than car racing in those days. And, he says the DYC was and still is a pioneer in freshwater sailing, power boat racing and competitive swimming.

But why Belle Isle?

In the mid-1880s, when clubs were looking for better positions on the river as it became more industrial, the Detroit Park Commission gave the Detroit Boat Club and the Detroit Yacht Club permission to build on the island. 

The clubs are actually not technically on the island. They built the foundations for the buildings next to Belle Isle. And gave them a pretty sweet deal.

“When the Park Commission originally approved the clubs to move to Belle Isle, each club had to furnish a $5,000 bond,” Malbouef said. He said that’s like $125,000 today.

“Then they’d pay an annual lease of $1 a year for property in Belle Isle.”

The one hundred year, one dollar a year leases ended in 1992. Malbouef says the Boat Club went from paying $1 to be on the island to 100,000 dollars overnight. 

Hitting rough waters

The boat club’s membership was around 250 by the 1990s– down from around 1400 in the 60s. It was leasing its building from the city on a month-to-month basis until 2014. When the state took over Belle Isle, the Boat Club got a 30 year lease. 

It hosted about 50 weddings a year before COVID – that money went into trying to keep the building in shape. But just after COVID part of a porch collapsed and the building was condemned. 

Now, a developer is working to restore the building so rowers, sailors and the community can use it.

That’s just a little bit of the histories of the Detroit Boat Club and the Detroit Yacht Club. We didn’t get into the part where they were sued to let Black members in. And Mike Alberts has a great story about the King of Norway.

But we answered Max Spayde’s question: There are two clubs because they were originally focused on different sports – and they made a deal with the city that made it possible for them to stay on Belle Isle for at least 100 years.

WDET’s CuriosiD series answers your questions about everything Detroit. Subscribe to CuriosiD on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Have a question about Southeast Michigan’s history or culture? Send it our way at wdet.org/curious or fill out the form below. You ask, we answer.

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The Detroit Red Wings are celebrating their 100th anniversary this season. Over the last century the team’s winged wheel logo has become iconic.

But Detroit’s hockey team isn’t the only group using the Red Wing identity. Red Wing Shoes, known for making boots, sports a logo that features similar styling cues.

Scott Deaner, from Petersburg, Michigan, asked CuriosiD if there’s any connection between the two.

“I’ve looked at the Red Wing shoe company logo several times,” says Deaner, “and I’m like, that is very similar to the Red Wings logo. Just add the wheel and it looks very similar.”

The answer to that question is no.

Red Wing Shoes was founded in 1905 in Red Wing, Minnesota. The famous boot maker takes its name from its hometown.

The Detroit Red Wings were founded in 1926, but they weren’t originally from Detroit.

Detroit hockey before the Red Wings name

They were known as the Victoria Cougars. Helene St. James covers the Wings for the Detroit Free Press.  She says the franchise moved to Detroit from British Colombia when the old Western Hockey League fell apart.

The thinking was ‘keep the name the same,” says St. James. “Let them be known as the Detroit Cougars.”

The team played under the Cougars moniker for four seasons with little success.

“They decided in 1930, they were renamed the Falcons,” she says. “But that wasn’t any better.”

The Red Wings didn’t become the “Red Wings” until 1932, after being purchased by Canadian-American businessman James Norris.

Origins of the “winged wheel”

Jeremy Dimick is director of collections and curatorial for the Detroit Historical Society. He put together an exhibit celebrating the Red Wings’ 100th anniversary that’s on display at the Detroit Historical Museum through November.

Dimick says it was Norris who came up with the now famous Winged Wheel. He says the amateur athletic club Norris played hockey for growing up in Montreal had at one point been known for bicycle racing.

“And so their club emblem became this bicycle wheel with wings on it,” says Dimick, “as like a shorthand for speed.”

That imagery stuck with Norris but the Red Wings logo isn’t exactly the same what he wore growing up.

The Montreal Amateur Athletic Associations logo featured two wings oriented vertical against the wheel. The orientation of the wing changed and the bicycle wheel was replaced with one that was a little more representative of the Motor City.

“The wheel that’s chosen is pretty darn close to a Model T wheel,” Dimick says. “And what better car to kind of represent Detroit’s auto industry.”

The color red

As for why red was selected for the Wings, that is believed to have been influenced by Norris’ business interests. Dimick says the color was associated with the Upper Lakes Shipping Company — a fleet of Great Lakes freighters that Norris owned.

“Their kind of club flag that they flew on all their ships and had on the smokestacks of all their ships,” Dimick explains, “was this bright red kind of crimson pennant with a black diamond in the middle. And that red is eerily similar to the red that ends up being the Red Wings’ red.”

Thus, the Detroit Red Wings name and emblem were born. The imagery remains pretty much the same as it is today.

While the Red Wings hockey team and the Red Wing shoe company brands share some styling cues, they arrived independently from one another.

WDET’s CuriosiD series answers your questions about everything Detroit. Subscribe to CuriosiD on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

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In this episode of CuriosiD, listener Leah Warshaw asks the question:

“How did The Old Miami get its name?”

The short answer

The first Miami on Cass was the Miami Lounge, which opened in 1947. As the neighborhood took a turn for the worse in the 60s, the bar became the site of murder, prostitution, and other crimes that marred its reputation. 

The bar switched owners several times but kept “Miami” in the name, for the most part. Shortly after The New Miami was burned down, veteran Danny Overstreet opened The Old Miami, with “Miami” standing for “missing in action Michigan”. Though it started as a place to serve veterans, it’s an inviting dive for everyone in the neighborhood today, with gems like a koi pond in its expansive backyard.

Danny’s wife, Julie, credits the use of “old” to Danny’s sense of humor. She runs the bar today. 

Manager Dena Walker adds, “I mean what would you call it—the New New Miami?”

For more details on the history of The Old Miami and what to expect from today’s laid-back atmosphere, listen to the podcast above.

WDET’s CuriosiD series answers your questions about everything Detroit. Subscribe to CuriosiD on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

We want to hear from you!

Have a question about Southeast Michigan’s history or culture? Send it our way at wdet.org/curious or fill out the form below. You ask, we answer.

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