Manufacturing came later in Detroit than mercantile or navigation interests, but it is now the most important source of the city’s prosperity. It is fostered by the advantages of water transportation already mentioned. To these are added others equally good for carriage by rail. It is both a terminal and crossing point for the two great Michigan railroad systems that reach almost every city and village in the state. It is on five of the great trunk lines between the East and the West. It has excellent connections with the whole Southwest. Recent additions to its line give it the best of southern connections, together with entrance into the coal fields of Ohio and West Virginia. It is a terminal point also for the two principal Canadian systems of railway, which reach every place of importance in the Dominion and the maritime provinces. A belt line encircles the city, crossing all of the railroads and facilitating the transfers of freight. A second belt line, to extend around the city at a uniform distance of six mile from the City Hall, has been commenced.

Unexcelled residence attractions, bout for employers and employees, favorable labor conditions, good municipal government, a light public debt, a low rate of taxation and an excellent home market are among the other inducements to the location of factories in Detroit.

The city first cut an appreciable figure in the census returns of manufactures in 1860. In the next ten years the capital invested increased 256 per cent. and the value of the product 303 per cent. increased by a much larger percentage than the quantity of the output. From 1870 to 1880 was a period of declining values, and while the quantity of manufactured goods increased, the total returns for the product remained nearly stationary. Since 1880 each decade has shown a substantial increase. In that year Detroit was the nineteenth city in the country in the value of its manufactured product; in 1890 it was sixteenth and in 1900 it was fifteenth; it is now probably as high as twelfth.