Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near Wayne Historic District Wayne, MI

Wayne is a city in Wayne County, Michigan, a western suburb about 18 miles southwest of downtown Detroit.

Wayne was settled in 1824 by George M. Johnson, who built a log tavern on the old Chicago Road — now Michigan Avenue — near the Rouge River as a stagecoach stop.

Ezra Derby, credited as Wayne's founder, bought the tavern and land in 1832, built a sawmill, store, and blacksmith shop, and platted the settlement, which became known as Derby's Corners.

In 1836 the settlement was renamed Wayne in honor of Revolutionary War general Anthony Wayne, the same namesake as Wayne County itself.

Wayne incorporated as a village on April 12, 1869, with about 800 residents, and it did not become a city until 1960.

Manufacturing came to Wayne in 1888 when the Prouty and Glass Carriage Company opened a plant, beginning the community's long history in transportation manufacturing.

Ford Motor Company operates two plants in Wayne today — the Wayne Stamping & Assembly plant and the Michigan Assembly Plant, formerly the Michigan Truck Plant.

The 2020 census counted 17,713 people in Wayne; a decade earlier, the 2010 census recorded 17,593 people in 7,055 households.

Wayne students are served by the Wayne-Westland Community School District, and the city's Wayne Memorial High School stands near where a horse racing track once operated on the flats behind it.

The historic State Wayne Theatre on Michigan Avenue and the two-story Wayne Historical Museum, housed in an 1878 building on the old public square, anchor the city's downtown heritage.