BlockBefore
Photograph of West Jefferson Avenue-Rouge River Bridge
Photograph by Andrew Jameson, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

West Jefferson Avenue-Rouge River Bridge

Built in 1922. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

From the record

“The West Jefferson Avenue-Rouge River Bridge is a historic double-leaf bascule bridge in Wayne County, Michigan, at the border of the cities of Detroit and River Rouge. The bridge carries Jefferson Avenue, a major thoroughfare in Southwest Detroit, over the River Rouge, an important inland route for lake freighters.”

Wikipedia article West Jefferson Avenue-Rouge River Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 396 National Register listings published here for Wayne County · listed in 2000 · category: Structure · built in 1922.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

  • What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
  • Listed as. West Jefferson Avenue--Rouge River Bridge - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
  • Address. W. Jefferson Ave. over Rouge R., River Rouge
  • When was it listed? February 2000
  • Category. structure
  • Also known as. Highway Bridges of Michigan MPS
  • City. River Rouge city
  • When was it built? 1922
  • National Register reference number. 00000079 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

70 since 2018

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 70 fires within 5 miles of West Jefferson Avenue-Rouge River Bridge between 2018 and 2020, burning about 72 acres in total. 5 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Equipment and vehicle use27
Debris and open burning19
Missing data/not specified/undetermined14
Natural5
Recreation and ceremony4
Smoking1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
5 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesDEARBORN FD 0010923 - 2018
26 September 2019Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesTAYLOR FD 0007107 - 2019
15 September 2019Debris and open burning1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesDETROIT FD 0033077 - 2019
7 August 2019Debris and open burning1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesDETROIT FD 0028065 - 2019
4 August 2018Debris and open burning1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesDETROIT FD 0028540 - 2018
30 August 2019Debris and open burning1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesDETROIT FD 0030872 - 2019
3 August 2019Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesALLEN PARK FD 0002267 - 2019
20 August 2019Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesDETROIT FD 0029719 - 2019

Every fire recorded in Wayne County

Mines and quarries near this property

7 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 7 workings within 5 miles of West Jefferson Avenue-Rouge River Bridge: 5 producers, 2 past producers. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Clay, Calcium, Salt, Halite. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Detroit MineSaltProducer
Detroit Salt MineHaliteProducer1895, 1910
Wr Grace Zonolite DivVermiculiteProducer
Clippert Brick and Tile Co. PitClayPast Producer
Detroit Lime Co Calcining PlantCalciumProducer
Ford Clay Pit and MineClayPast Producer
River Rouge LimekilnCalciumProducer

Every working recorded in Wayne County

Storms near this property

3 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names River Rouge, the town this property stands in, in 3 storm reports between 1996 and 2006: 2 hail, 1 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 2006Thunderstorm WindRiver Rouge-Trained spotter reported numerous 6 inch tree limbs down.
June 2006HailRiver Rouge-no account filed
May 1996HailRiver Rouge-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Wayne County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 00000079 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Wayne CountyAll 396 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

  • Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
  • Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
  • How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
  • Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
  • Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
  • Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.