Monroe

Monroe, city, seat (1817) of Monroe county, southeastern Michigan, U.S. It lies at the mouth of the River Raisin, on Lake Erie, between Detroit (about 40 miles [60 km] northeast) and Toledo, Ohio (about 12 miles [20 km] southwest). French Canadians founded a community on the north bank of the Raisin in the 1780s that came to be called Frenchtown; during the War of 1812, it was the scene of the River Raisin Massacre (January 22, 1813) of Gen. James Winchester’s U.S. troops by Indians allied with England. The village never recovered, and in 1817 American settlers laid out a community named for Pres. James Monroe on the river’s south bank; in 1835 it figured prominently in the Toledo War (a bloodless boundary dispute between Ohio and Michigan).

Economic activities include shipping and diversified manufactures, notably paper products and automobile parts. Monroe was once the home of U.S. military officer George Armstrong Custer, and his mementos are in the Monroe County Historical Museum. The Navarre-Anderson Trading Post (1789), Michigan’s oldest surviving wooden structure, is one of a number of pre-Civil War structures in the city; the River Raisin Battlefield Visitor Center displays artifacts from the massacre and early settlements in the area. Sterling State Park is on Lake Erie just north of Monroe. Monroe County Community College opened in 1964. Inc. village, 1827; city, 1837. Pop. (2000) 22,076; Monroe Metro Area, 145,945; (2010) 20,733; Monroe Metro Area, 152,021.