The stories behind some of Detroit’s most notable memorials, monuments, and statues

Michigan Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument
Campus Martius Park, Detroit
Unveiled in 1872, this monument is dedicated to Michigan’s sailors and soldiers killed during the Civil War. It was re-dedicated in 2005 following the completion of Campus Martius Plaza and those who died in wars since were also honored.

The statue of Hazen Pingree
West of Woodward Avenue and south of Adams Street in Grand Circus Park, Detroit
Chances are you’ve seen the statue of “Potato Patch Ping” downtown. He’s the businessman who was run for mayor in the 1890s, only to shock his big business backers by winning and promptly becoming a progressive reformer. He was among the first to encourage urban agriculture by allowing Detroiters to use vacant city-owned lots for potato patches during the Panic of 1893. He fought the railroad and electric trusts. He helped establish public transportation in Detroit. He was elected mayor four times and left office only to become governor. The plaque on the statue reads: “He was the first to warn the people of the great danger threatened by powerful private corporations, and the first to awake to the great inequalities in taxation and to initiate steps for reform, and calls him “The Idol of the People.”

Son House’s Grave
Mount Hazel Cemetery, Lahser between Pickford and Clarita streets, Detroit
Eddie James “Son” House Jr. was born in 1902 in Lyon, Miss. When he embraced blues music at the age of 25, he was on his way to becoming one of the greatest Delta Blues musicians. He even inspired the likes of seminal bluesman Robert Johnson. House moved to Detroit late in life, in 1974, and died here of cancer in 1988. His body was buried in Mount Hazel Cemetery without a pretentious marker for many years — at least until the Detroit Blues Society helped raise money for a proper, imposing monument for this blues giant.

Beth Olem
On the grounds of the GM Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant, Detroit and Hamtramck
In the early 1980s, when the Poletown area of Detroit was flattened by Detroit to make way for a new General Motors factory, one feature of the old neighborhood remained: an old Jewish cemetery named Beth Olem — in Hebrew “House of the World.” It’s still there, on the property of the enormous plant, and is open one day a year for memorial services.

Christopher Columbus Monument
Randolph Street at Jefferson Avenue, Detroit
Many didn’t realize there even was a statue of Christopher Columbus until Columbus Day 2015, when the statue was vandalized with a hatchet and splattered with red paint. The statue was removed in 2020 and placed in storage in 2020.

Dr. Joseph De Horatiis
Warren Avenue and East Grand Boulevard, Detroit
Born in Italy, a student of medicine in his native country and in Detroit, Dr. Joseph De Horatiis was known as the dean of Detroit’s Italian American medical community, a decent man who dispensed advice on everything from medical matters to mortgages while servicing the immigrant community here. During Detroit’s 1943 race riot, though he had been warned by police, the doctor insisted on driving through the riot zone to treat a patient. He was attacked and killed. Detroit’s Italian American community came together to erect this monument to the man who gave his life in service to his people.

The Hand of God
Gratiot Avenue east of St. Antoine, Detroit
A stark, modernistic statue in a small courtyard on the north side of the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, the 1949 work called “The Hand of God” is actually in honor of Frank Murphy, paid for by the United Auto Workers. Murphy’s career ranged from Recorder’s Court judge in the 1920s to the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1940s, and his sympathy for the downtrodden, oppressed, and poor made him a progressive and inspiring jurist. He won the UAW’s sympathy, of course, when, in the mid-1930s, as governor of Michigan, Murphy refused to send in Michigan troops to help General Motors break the union’s sit-down strike.

The Rev. James F. Jones’s grave
Woodlawn Cemetery, Detroit
James F. Jones was born in Birmingham, Ala., in 1907. As a teenager, he began preaching the gospel, and by 1938 had moved to Detroit to create what woul become the Church of Universal Triumph, Dominion of God, Inc. By the 1940s, he had declared himself “Prophet” Jones, and preached that God spoke directly to him. Parishioners were required to take part in all-night worship services, and to celebrate his birthday as a religious holiday. He delivered his sermons via radio and his career presaged the televangelists of later years. His private life was luxurious, and he lived in a three-story mansion on Ferry Street. He was finally felled by a heart attack in 1971. His grave, a surprisingly modest laid stone, is in Woodlawn Cemetery.

Dante Alighieri
Near Vista and Central avenues, Belle Isle Park, Detroit
Why is there a bust of the author of The Divine Comed on Belle Isle? It’s yet another statue erected by Detroit’s Italian American community. It was timed to coincide with the 600th anniversary of the Italian poet’s death, and since Dante was almost universally loved and respected, taught in universities, it was likely a bid for respectability from an immigrant group vying for respectability.

Tuskegee Airman Lt. Col. Alexander Jefferson
Rouge Park, Detroit This life-size, bronze statue was erected in 2024 to honor Lt. Col. Alexander Jefferson, a WWII veteran, German prisoner of war, and beloved Detroit teacher who flew model airplanes at Rouge Park as a young boy. Jefferson was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American military pilots and airmen who served in World War II, and died at 100 in 2022. The statue was created by Detroit-based sculptor Austen Brantley.