James McMillan’s Grave

His fingerprints are on Washington, D.C. as much as on Detroit. James McMillan built a fortune in Michigan shipping, railcars, and manufacturing, then ran the state’s Republican machine from a U.S. Senate seat — and chaired the commission whose 1902 “McMillan Plan” reshaped Washington’s National Mall into the monumental core we know today. Not bad for a Detroit industrialist.

He rests at Elmwood. On our list — a reminder that Detroit money and ambition once helped redraw the nation’s capital.