Waterford Township is a charter township in the geographic center of Oakland County, Michigan, United States. In 2020, the population of Waterford Township was 70,565.

Communities

Waterford Township has five unincorporated communities: * Clintonville () is located on Walton Boulevard between Clintonville Road and Sashabaw Road. * Drayton Plains () is located at Dixie Highway on the west end of Loon Lake. * Elizabeth Lake () is an historic resort community located on Elizabeth Lake. * Four Towns () is located at Lochaven Road and Cooley Lake Road. * Waterford Village () is an historic village located at Dixie Highway and Andersonville Road.

History

Lewis Cass, the third

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Michigan Territory The Territory of Michigan was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from June 30, 1805, until January 26, 1837, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Michigan. Detroi ...

, established the boundaries of Oakland County in 1819. Waterford Township was organized in 1834. In 1818, Oliver Williams selected land in Oakland CountySeeley (1912), p. 484-85. which he purchased for two dollars an

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ...

. Archibald Phillips and Alpheus Williams purchased in what later became Waterford Village. In 1818, Oliver Williams and his family established the first

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used ...

settlement in the county on the banks of

Silver Lake Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

. In 1819, Alpheus Williams and Archibald Phillips continued on to where the Clinton River crossed the old Saginaw Trail (now known as Dixie Highway). They settled at the site of the present Waterford Village. Here the first

house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air ...

of Waterford Village was built by Alpheus Williams on the north bank of the river. Archibald Phillips built his home across from the south corner where Andersonville Road meets Dixie Highway. Williams and Phillips also built the first dam where the Clinton River crossed the Saginaw Trail and erected the first

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

. The township was named Waterford because of the vast number of lakes covering the township.

Geography

According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy An economy is an area of th ...

, the township has a total area of , of which is land and , or 11.22%, is water.

Climate

Like the rest of

Southeast Michigan Southeast Michigan, also called southeastern Michigan, is a region in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan that is home to a majority of the state's businesses and industries as well as slightly over half of the state's population, most of whom are ...

, Waterford Township has a continental climate. It has a higher elevation than

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

( compared to ), and therefore the township is somewhat cooler than Detroit and other nearby cities. It is moderately cold in the winter with varied snowfall throughout. Spring varies from warm by day to cool at night. The township's warmest weather occurs in the summer with temperatures in the eighty to ninety degree range and typically high humidity. Summer is also the wettest season in the area. In recent years, Waterford Township has seen a few 100-plus degree days. Fall starts warm, but November ends with high temperatures barely above freezing.

Lakes

Waterford Township is home to 34 named lakes.

Demographics

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, Waterford Township had a population of 70,565.

2020 Census

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the racial makeup of the township was: * 85.2% White alone * 5.7% Black or African American alone * 0.5% American Indian and Alaska native alone * 2.1% Asian alone * 0.1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone * 4.9% Two or More Races alone * 7.0% Hispanic or Latino * 81.4% White alone, not Hispanic or Latino

2010 Census

According to the 2010 Census the racial and ethnic makeup of Waterford's population was 83.7% non-Hispanic White, and 4.8% African-American, 0.4% Native American, 1.9% Asian and 6.6% Hispanic.

2000 Census

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there were 73,150 people, 29,387 households, and 19,130 families residing in the township in 2000. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical ...

was 2,334.3 people per square mile (901.2/km²). In 2000, there were 30,404 housing units, with an average density of 970.2 per square mile (374.6/km²). The racial makeup of the township in 2000 was: * 92.65%

White White is the lightness, lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully diffuse reflection, reflect and scattering, scatter all the ...

* 3.91%

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties for ...

or Latino * 2.89%

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

* 0.35% Native American * 1.27% Asian * 0.01%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of Ocea ...

* 1.13% from other races * 1.69% from two or more races In 2000, there were: * 29,387 households * 30.4% of the households had children under the age of 18 living with them * 51.6% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...

living together * 9.6% had a female householder with no husband present * 34.9% were non-families * 27.9% of all households were made up of individuals * 8.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older * 2.42 was the average household size * 2.99 was the average family size. The township's 2000 population was: * 23.2% under the age of 18 * 8.2% from 18 to 24 * 36.0% from 25 to 44 * 21.8% from 45 to 64 * 10.8% who were 65 years of age or older * The median age was 36 years * For every 100 females, there were 99.6 males * For every 100 females age 18 and over there were 97.5 males The median income for a household in 2000 in the township was $55,008, and the median income for a family was $64,500. Males had a median income of $47,409 versus $32,016 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita i ...

for the township was $27,432. About 3.8% of families and 5.1% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 5.8% of those under age 18 and 4.0% of those age 65 and over.

Transportation

Oakland County International Airport is located in Waterford Township. The airport is a hub for the airline Lakeshore Express, a local commuter airline to

Pellston Pellston is a village in Emmet County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 822 at the 2010 census. The village is the home of Pellston Regional Airport. The village lies on the boundary between Maple River and McKinley townships ...

, and Chicago-Midway

Railroad

In 1851, the Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railway came through Waterford Township and three train depots were built in Waterford Township; the Drayton Plains depot (at Hatchery Rd.), the

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depot (at Airport Rd.) and the Windiate depot (at Windiate Rd.) . The railroad helped make the many lakes of the Waterford area easily accessible to summer vacationers from the big cities and served to make Waterford Township a summer resort area. In 1882, the Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railway was purchased by the Grand Trunk Western Railroad. As roads were improved, people began driving to their summer resort area and the passenger depots were closed in the late 1950s. The Windiate Park Hotel was a summer resort for vacationers from

and Lansing. The resort was easily accessed by four trains a day during the summer months from the 1890s to the 1940s and was located on Lotus Lake, near the Windiate depot. The resort featured boating, fishing, sailing, sunbathing, tennis and a dance hall. The resort was owned by J.D. and M.L. Rice. Another popular summer resort was the Waterford Hotel in the village of Waterford. The hotel was sold to William Bradt, who changed its name to Bradt's Exchange. The hotel was also named the Waterford Exchange, and served as a

stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...

stop for over 60 years. Today, the railroad is owned by

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I railroad, Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern United States, M ...

(CN) and passenger service is no longer offered, giving way to freight only. There are seven railroad crossings in Waterford Township and one railroad bridge.

Government and infrastructure

The West Campus of the Oakland County Service Center is located in Waterford Township. This includes the Oakland County Executive Building and Conference Center, and the Oakland County Children's Village, the county's juvenile detention center for children. The Children's Village acts as one of the support sites for the Waterford School District.

Education

Public schools

The Waterford School District operates public schools in most of Waterford Township (the Pontiac School District serves a small portion of the township). In 1961,

Kettering High School Kettering High School was a four-year high school within the Detroit Public Schools system. The school, located in the low-income Gratiot Town/Kettering neighborhood, was around 1,200 students under capacity at its closure in 2012. History Kett ...

opened and Mott High School opened in 1969. Kettering's address is now 2800 Kettering Drive in Waterford. In 2012, Durant High School, an

alternative school An alternative school is an educational establishment with a curriculum and methods that are nontraditional. Such schools offer a wide range of philosophies and teaching methods; some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientati ...

, opened in the township at 501 N. Cass Lake Road in Waterford. All three Waterford Township public high schools were named after automobile industry pioneers; William C. Durant, Charles F. Kettering, and

Charles S. Mott Charles Stewart Mott (June 2, 1875 – February 18, 1973) was an American industrialist and businessman, a co-founder of General Motors, philanthropist, and the 50th and 55th mayor of Flint, Michigan. Mott is the figure most responsible for foun ...

. Waterford Township High School was located in Waterford Township, Michigan at the corner of Highland Rd. and Crescent Lake Rd. It was closed as a high school in 1983, but the Board of Education continued to use the building for several years for various purposes. (Waterford Township: Year Opened: 1947, Year Closed: 1983). In 1957,

John D. Pierce John Davis Pierce (February 18, 1797 – April 5, 1882) was a Congregationalist minister, public schools advocate, and Michigan legislator. He was Michigan's first superintendent of public schools, a position new to the United States, where h ...

Junior High School opened at 5145 Hatchery Road in Waterford, and

Stevens T. Mason Stevens Thomson Mason (October 27, 1811 – January 4, 1843) was an American politician who served as the first governor of Michigan from 1835 to 1840. Coming to political prominence at an early age, Mason was appointed his territory's ...

Junior High School was opened in 1965 at 3835 West Walton Blvd. in Waterford. Both junior high schools originally included grades 7 through 9. Today, both Pierce and Mason are middle schools, which include grades 6 through 8. As of the 2015–16 school year, the Waterford School District has nine

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...

elementary schools located within the township; William Beaumont Elementary School, Thomas M. Cooley Elementary School, Donelson Hills Elementary School, David Grayson Elementary School,

Laura S. Haviland Laura Smith Haviland (December 20, 1808 – April 20, 1898) was an American abolitionist, suffragette, and social reformer. She was a Quaker and an important figure in the history of the Underground Railroad. Early years and family Laura Smit ...

Elementary School, Douglass Houghton Elementary School, William S. Knudsen Elementary School, Riverside Elementary School, and Henry R. Schoolcraft Elementary School.

Private schools

Opened in 1960, Our Lady of the Lakes School is a private

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

K-12 school also located in the township at 5495 Dixie Highway, just south of Waterford Village. St. Benedict School in Waterford was in operation until circa 2003, when the campus became the lower (elementary school) of Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy; this occurred in a time when other Catholic elementary schools in the area closed. The lower school moved to the common Pontiac campus in 2013.

Community College

Waterford Township is home to the Oakland Community College Highland Lakes Campus. The campus, which opened in 1965, is located at 7350 Cooley Lake Road in Waterford. Oakland Schools, the intermediate school district serving Oakland County, has its offices in Waterford Township.

Public library

The Waterford Township Public Library serves the residents of the township. It is located at 5168 Civic Center Drive, off of Crescent Lake Road near Hatchery Road in Waterford.

Public safety

Waterford Township maintains its own police and fire departments. The Waterford Police Department was founded in 1953. Frank VanAtta was appointed the first Waterford Chief of Police, earning a yearly salary of $5,500. William Stokes was a long time chief who had some 30 years of service before retiring in 1985. He was followed by Robert (Duke) Reynolds and then Gary Root followed by Paul Valad. After a short and contentious stint as chief (a vote of no confidence showed zero votes for), Daniel McCaw was replaced by the current chief Scott Underwood who retired as a Lieutenant at the Warren Police Department. The police station is located at 5150 Civic Center Drive in Waterford near the Waterford Township Hall and the 51st District Court in the Waterford Civic Center Complex. The police department was drastically cut in 2010 due to the falling economy and the closing of 2 of the largest commercial tax sources- The Summit Place Mall and a General Motors facility. The department went from over 100 sworn police officers to 55 which was similar to the number of officers in the 1970s. A recent tax increase voted on by the residents is supposed to add 9 more officers. Waterford still remains one of the largest physical and populated areas in Oakland County but remains on the bottom of police officers per population. The Waterford Regional Fire Department employs 144. It is currently the 4th largest Fire Department in the State of Michigan. Waterford Township also provides Fire, EMS, and Dispatch services to the neighboring City of Pontiac and City of Lake Angelus.

Notable people

Todd Alsup Todd Alsup is an American pianist and singer-songwriter based in New York City. He has been profiled in Billboard Magazine and Performing Songwriter and featured on MTV, PBS, and Sirius XM Radio. He has toured throughout the United States and E ...

, pianist, singer-songwriter * Mary Barra, CEO, General Motors * Paul Fry, baseball player for the

Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. As one of the American League's eight charter ...

* Pat LaFontaine, former

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

player, 2003 Hockey Hall of Fame inductee *

Kirk Gibson Kirk Harold Gibson (born May 28, 1957) is an American former professional baseball player and manager. He is currently a color commentator for the Detroit Tigers on Bally Sports Detroit and a special assistant for the Tigers. As a player, Gibso ...

, former MLB player * Gail Goestenkors, former women's basketball head coach,

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Michael L. Good Michael L. Good is an American anesthesiologist and the CEO of University of Utah Health (U of U Health), Executive Dean of the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine, and the A. Lorris Betz Senior Vice President of Health Sciences. He served as t ...

, dean, University of Florida College of Medicine *

Dylan Larkin Dylan Larkin (born July 30, 1996) is an American professional ice hockey player and captain of the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League (NHL). Larkin was drafted 15th overall by the Detroit Red Wings in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft. Pr ...

player and

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

of the

Detroit Red Wings The Detroit Red Wings (colloquially referred to as the Wings) are a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit. The Red Wings compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NHL), Atlantic Division in the East ...

* Dave Marsh, music critic * Jim Miller, former

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

player * Paul Mitchell, Member of the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together the ...

* Kristopher Pooley, rock musician and musical director * Jean (Racine) Prahm, U.S. Olympian bobsledder * Brett Reed, men's basketball head coach,

Lehigh University Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Ep ...

Trevor Strnad Trevor (Trefor (disambiguation), Trefor in the Welsh language) is a common given name or surname of Welsh language, Welsh origin. It is an habitational name, deriving from the Welsh ''tre(f)'', meaning "homestead", or "settlement" and ''fawr'', ...

, lead singer, The Black Dahlia Murder

References

Sources

External links

Charter Township of Waterford Michigan

Waterford Township Public Library

Waterford Area Chamber of Commerce
{{Authority control Townships in Oakland County, Michigan Charter townships in Michigan Metro Detroit 1834 establishments in Michigan Territory Populated places established in 1834 Former census-designated places in Michigan