1952 Map of Belleville

About this map

Belleville Lake and the winding Huron River dominate this early 1950s landscape, illustrating a region in the midst of post-war transformation. While the Wabash RR and Chesapeake and Ohio RR maintain the traditional rail-oriented transport patterns of older towns like Belleville and New Boston, the emergence of the Willow Run Expressway and Detroit Industrial Expressway signals the accelerating shift toward the modern automotive age. In the surrounding townships of Van Buren and Romulus, small crossroads and rural schoolhouses such as East Tyler Sch and Sumpter Sch sit alongside growing residential clusters like Little Farms. For those researching family ties, the map identifies several local burial grounds including Martinsville Cem and Otisville Cem, providing exact spatial context for these community landmarks before the full suburban expansion of the later twentieth century.