13. Wyandotte

In 1944 a new home improvement product was developed to be marketed to owners of existing residential homes. It caught William's attention. The product was a permanently installed wood-framed storm window convertible to self-contained screens in the summer. The product would eliminate the annual task of homeowners having to tote cumbersome, heavy, storm windows from the garage or basement and to climb ladders to install the windows in the fall and to take them down and return them to the garage or basement in the spring.

William investigated the new product and saw the potential for marketing it in the downriver part of the Detroit suburban area. He established the Kyro Home Improvement Company in the town of Wyandotte to sell and install the new convertible windows. Wyandotte is a suburb of Detroit located about 10 miles south of the city on the banks of the Detroit River. Leonard Dixon joined the company as an outside salesman.

William Kyro had carefully selected the location of his new business. Wyandotte has been called “The Athens of Michigan.” Wyandotte was the first village established in Michigan after Detroit was founded in 1701. The Wyandot Indian tribe originally lived on Georgian Bay in Ontario. They were converted to Christianity in the 1600s by the French. In 1730 they moved to what is now Wyandotte and constructed a village of log cabins. This location was chosen because of the high river banks. These Indians were not savages; they had adopted the white man’s religion, mode of living and style of home construction. In 1818 the Wyandot Indians moved to a reservation and John Biddle, the first European settler, arrived from Philadelphia. Biddle purchased the land, established a farm, and named the area “Wyandotte.” Biddle later became mayor of Detroit and served as a U.S. congressman. He built a large house on his Wyandotte farm in 1835. Biddle is now the name of the main street in Wyandotte.

The American Frontier reached Michigan in the 1830s. Empty forest land was soon dotted with farms and villages all across the territory. In 1836 Michigan became a state.

In 1854 Wyandotte officially became a town when Eber Ward constructed the Eureka Iron and Steel Factory. The first blast furnace in America made steel at the Eureka factory. Ward later opened the Wyandotte Shipyards where over 200 ships were constructed for use on the Great Lakes.

By the 1940s, Wyandotte was an idyllic small city of about 50,000 people. Bishop Park was located on the Detroit River. It contained a bandstand where concerts were given in the summer. The park included a dock where an antique steam-powered excursion boat picked up passengers for a boat ride and an outing on Bob-Lo island, an amusement park several miles down the river.

Wyandotte was home to many firsts. The first Bessemer steel process in the United States ran at Eureka Iron Works in 1864. In 1892 the first city-owned electric power plant was constructed in Wyandotte. The first steam turbine in the U.S. was used in Wyandotte in 1902. The first liquid chlorine in the US was shipped from Wyandotte in 1909. The first modern three-story high school was constructed in Wyandotte in 1921. The innovative Roosevelt High School building was a model for other high schools constructed throughout the state. The first liquid fluorine was sold in Wyandotte in 1946. The first civilian Coast Guard Auxiliary was organized in Wyandotte during W.W.II to patrol the Detroit River. In 1942 Wyandotte became the first city in Michigan to purchase a fighting ship for the US Navy. It was a destroyer escort named the “Wyandotte.”

The Kyro Home Improvement Company was located in a store front in the same building as the Wyandotte Theater.

The Wyandotte Theater was a remarkable building. When constructed in 1938, it was the world’s first double auditorium theater. Double features were normal at the time and the same bill was shown in both auditoriums. The typical program consisted of two feature-length movies plus a newsreel, cartoon, previews of coming attractions and possibly a short subject. One movie was shown in the east auditorium while the second feature was shown in the west auditorium. A movie goer could choose which movie to see first. A patron who wished to see the same feature twice could watch it in one auditorium and then walk to the other one to view it again. The Wyandotte Theater still exists in 2006, and is used for special events.

Downtown Wyandotte also boasted of two older movie theaters, the Majestic, built in 1916 and Marx Opera House, built in 1896 and renamed the Rialto in 1921. There were many other stores, the Wyandotte Savings Bank, a Sears, Roebuck department store, and the Bacon Public Library located near beautiful Bishop Park,

In 1944, all available metal was used for war production. But wood was plentiful and storm windows were considered useful to the war effort since they saved energy. Workers were fully employed in war work and well paid, but people were unable to spend their money since few products were available. Therefore William Kyro found a hot market for the wooden storm windows. William Kyro, Leonard Dixon and other salesmen were calling on prospects and writing up orders at a rapid clip.

The salesman would visit the home, measure all the windows, write up the order and get the signature of the prospect. The order was then given to the installation man who would transport storm windows to the house in a trailer, trim them for an exact fit, and then install them.

At first Leonard and William drove from their homes in Detroit to Wyandotte every day (a distance of about 14 miles). Gasoline was rationed during the war, so it was decided to move to Wyandotte as soon as possible.

During the war the huge Willow Run Bomber Plant was constructed, along with its own airport, on farm land about 15 miles west of Wyandotte. Thousands of workers were hired to turn out four engine B24 “Liberator” bombers on a Detroit-style assembly line. Housing for the workers was in short supply so the construction of new houses in nearby towns was authorized. Some of those new homes were built in Wyandotte.

The FHA made it easy to buy a home with a low down payment during the 1940s In August 1944, William and Anna Kyro moved into their new home at 1405 18th Street while the Dixon family (Leonard, Laura, John and Ann) moved into their new home at 1439 18th Street. The Kyros and the Dixons were the first occupants of these newly built homes. (As of 2005, these houses still stand and look nearly the same as they did in 1944.)

Since the two homes were only three houses (about 50 yards) apart, the two families often visited one another. Ann and John Dixon got to know their grandparents quite well during this time. At first the streets were unpaved. Due to the war effort, telephones were scarce and were not provided for new houses in 1944. Instead, pay phones were installed on each corner in the new neighborhood. (After the war, the streets were paved and each house got a phone.)

The two houses on 18th Street were located one block south of Goddard Road which runs along the bank of the Ecourse River, a stream about 15 feet wide. This river is the northern boundary of Wyandotte. In winter, the river would freeze solid. The Dixon family would go there for ice skating sessions. In spring the ice would melt and the river would often overflow its banks.

John Dixon walked about two miles south to Washington Elementary School. At the time, school buses were not used. Transportation available in Wyandotte consisted of a local bus that carried people from the city limits at 23rd Street to the downtown area at First Street, where the Wyandotte Theater was located. There was also a suburban bus that allowed John Dixon and other adventurous Wyandotte residents to visit the wonders of Detroit and shop at the 20-story Hudson’s downtown department store. School-age youngsters also traveled by bicycle.

Most of the major railroad tracks connecting Detroit with the rest of the nation ran through the middle of Wyandotte in a north-south direction. There were five main rail lines and one passenger station. During the war military goods dominated the freight traffic. During W.W.II Detroit earned the nickname “Arsenal of Democracy.” When John Dixon and his friends walked downtown after school they would have to wait for a regular daily train that carried tanks off to war. Detroit assembly lines turned out an entire train load of tanks every single day.

Shortly after moving to Wyandotte, John Dixon became a paper boy, delivering The Wyandotte Tribune to houses from 15th Street to 23rd Street. He continued to deliver newspapers during his years in Wyandotte. At one time or another he had routes for all the major local papers, The Detroit News, The Detroit Times and the Detroit Free Press.

About 1945, inspired by a biography of Thomas Edison, John Dixon constructed a telegraph which connected the Kyro home with the Dixon residence. Doorbell buzzers were used as sounders and 1.5 volt #6 dry cells provided the electric power. About 200 feet of copper wire was routed along the alley behind 18th Street. Thus John was able to communicate with his grandparents. The line was a technical success although sending messages was a very slow business since no one had the Morse code memorized and each letter had to be looked up on a chart. William Kyro recognized the educational value and was supportive of this project.