Birmingham
One of the metro's most upscale and genuinely walkable downtowns — premier dining, shopping, and people-watching at the famous corner of Maple and Old Woodward.
The story
Birmingham almost didn’t happen. After the land was ceded in 1807, a government surveyor declared this area hopeless swamp — “not an acre out of a hundred” worth farming — and settlement stalled. Then in 1818, Lewis Cass took a closer look, found the swamp wasn’t so bad, and the settlers came. Three enterprising founders — Willits, Hunter, and Hamilton — bought land right where the Saginaw Trail (now Woodward) crossed the Rouge River, and rather than just farm, they ran taverns and hotels for travelers heading between Detroit and Pontiac. (Fun footnote: the very first land claim was filed by Colonel Benjamin Pierce, brother of future U.S. President Franklin Pierce.) They named the place Birmingham, after England’s great industrial city, betting it would become a manufacturing hub.
That bet didn’t pan out — the foundries faded by the 1860s — but something better did. Birmingham’s spot on Woodward made it a perfect commuter town and commercial center, and over the 20th century it grew into the most refined downtown in the metro. When the state widened Woodward in the 1930s, they couldn’t bear to bulldoze the beloved shopping strip at Maple, so they routed the highway around it — which is why downtown’s “Old Woodward” exists today. The corner of Maple and Old Woodward is still the most coveted address in town: a walkable grid of boutiques, sidewalk cafés, galleries, and a classic movie palace. It’s polished, yes — but it’s the kind of polished you actually want to spend an afternoon in.
Did you know?
- Birmingham was named after Birmingham, England — its founders optimistically expected it to become a manufacturing powerhouse (it became a shopping-and-dining destination instead).
- The oldest house in all of Oakland County — the 1822 John West Hunter house — stands at the Birmingham Museum.
- When Woodward Avenue was widened in the 1930s, the highway was routed around downtown to save the shops, creating the “Old Woodward” strip — later dubbed the largest change of address in Michigan history.
- The first land claim in Birmingham was filed in 1819 by Colonel Benjamin Pierce — brother of future U.S. President Franklin Pierce.
- Hunter House Hamburgers, a tiny beloved slider joint serving since 1952, is named for one of the city’s founding families.
Notable locals
Birmingham wears its founders proudly — the Willits, Hunter, Hamilton, Pierce, and Merrill names are stamped across the city’s streets, schools, and even its burger joint, and one founding land claim links the town to a U.S. president’s family. These days, Birmingham is known less for famous individuals than for being the address — a polished, affluent downtown where metro Detroiters come to shop, dine, and be seen. Sometimes a town’s real draw is simply the place itself.
