HISTORY LESSON: How Dutch Elm Disease killed Detroit's tree canopies, and how it lingers today

Welcome to History Lesson, a new recurring feature in Model D led by local historian Jacob Jones, in which we delve deep into the annals of Detroit history and nerd out over a different topic each time. This month, we're talking elm trees.

If you arrived in Detroit at the turn of the 20th century, you would have been surrounded by elm trees. They would have lined the road on your streetcar trip, canopied the street outside of your boarding house, and when you checked the classified ads looking for a place of your own, you would have been inundated with advertisement after advertisement from landlords and real estate agents bragging about the impressive elms surrounding their property.

In all, between 200,000 and 500,000 elm trees lined and canopied Detroit’s wide boulevards and streets. Detroit was known as a City of Trees, perhaps The City of Trees. But by the 1960s, the it  was flying helicopters over its streets and dumping DDT onto its trees to save what few elms remained. What happened? Dutch Elm Disease, a plague which would eventually wipe out most of the nation’s elms, landed in Detroit and decimated its urban canopy.

Detroit’s elm tree destruction begins a long way away from the city. In the early 1900s, Europeans began noticing that the leaves high atop their grand elm trees started yellowing months before their usual autumnal turn. The premature turning spread rapidly, from tree to tree, and by 1920 signs of it were found throughout Europe’s cities. 

In 1921, a scientist in the Netherlands diagnosed the disease. Now known as Dutch Elm disease, it was spread by beetles living on the bark of elm trees. The beetle’s fungus blocks water and nutrients from feeding the tree. The infection spreads from the bark, through the branches, and into the trunk, before finally reaching the roots and killing the tree.

The disease came to America on a ship in 1928. Stowed away on a shipment of lumber headed for a furniture factory in Ohio. The beetles and the infection they carried spread rapidly along  the East Coast . The New York based Literary Digest called it an invasion. The Boston Globe called it a plague. In Newburry, New Jersey, infections grew from 69 to 309 in just 3 weeks. In response, the State government encouraged residents to cut off tree branches and send them to a disease lab in Wooster, Ohio. The disease became so strong that eventually the Civil Works Association, a New Deal program aimed at employing laborers, enlisted 500 men to fight the spread of the disease.

But in Detroit, Dutch Elm Disease hardly registered. In 1937, the Free Press reported that the “control and eradication of Dutch Elm Disease was practically assured.” The local press in Detroit had been assured by the Bureau of Entomology that Dutch Elm Disease containment would cost the nation no more than $30 million.

For Detroit, a city defined by its trees, this was good news. August Woodward’s original plans for the city included grand boulevards and crescent shaped parks, each lined with beautiful trees. In the years following its implementation, Detroit planted hundreds of thousands of trees, managed their growth, and invested in nurseries. In the 20^th century, when the City’s population skyrocketed the city lined its residential streets with towering elms. By the time World War II began, Detroit’s 1.6 million residents were surrounded by upwards of 400,000 elm trees.

These trees were valuable. The U.S. Bureau of Entomology valued each Elm tree at $48 apiece. And like every valuable commodity, everybody wanted one. The trees were packed together. Usually only 40 feet apart and often growing100 feet tall. The roots bumped into each other, causing sidewalks to raise and foundations to crack. The branches, high above Detroit’s manicured residential streets, intertwined with each other, creating an illusion that the trees had blended. Looking up, you’d see one continuous canopy. It wasn’t until the leaves turned from green to yellow and fell to the ground, leaving bare branches in its place, that you could tell the trees apart which seemed to be happening earlier and earlier each year.

A reallocation of resources during World War II pulled money away from Dutch Elm Disease eradication and the results were felt across the Midwest. By 1950, the plague had arrived in Detroit. The beetle spread to all corners of Detroit and the city’s glorious elms began dying. The authorities from the City’s Parks Department encouraged residents to examine their trees, cut down those that were housing beetles, and to burn their dead branches. By the 1970s, Detroit had lost hundreds of thousands of Elm trees, it had spent upwards of $800,000 per year on removal and remediation to no avail. By the late 1990s, fewer than 2,000 elm trees remained in Detroit.

Today, efforts are still being taken to mitigate the damage done by Dutch Elm Disease. Organizations such as the Greening of Detroit have planted hundreds of thousands of trees throughout the Detroit, scientists continue to look for a cure, and cities across the world spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to save what few elms they have left. In Detroit, few remain but in certain neighborhoods portions of the beautifully shaded canopy still exist.

Jacob Jones is a historian and storyteller who has spent a decade leading tours of the city’s iconic landmarks. His tours of the Fisher Building, Guardian Building, and Packard Plant have attracted tens of thousands of guests from around the world and have been praised by the Detroit Free Press, the BBC, and the New York Times. When he’s not sharing history you can find him in a good local bar, perusing the stacks at the Detroit Public Library, and cheering on his beloved Detroit Lions.