CITIES: Midwestern Birthday

Harry Truman will speak, bands will blast along Woodward Avenue, 20,000 marchers will clump past Detroit's smoke-smudged City Hall. From the steps, governors, Senators, dignitaries from Britain, France, China, Ethiopia will watch and applaud. One of the paraders will be costumed as Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, who paddled through place du detroit—the narrows between Lakes Huron and Erie—and picked a spot to start the furtrading post that became Detroit. In a brisk, well-organized way, this week, Detroit is observing its 250th birthday.

Two hundred and fifty years is a ripe age...

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