Dearborn Heights is a neighborly, low key city of just under 60,000 residents. Dearborn Heights was known as Dearborn
Township until it was finally incorporated in 1963, in an effort to maintain its identity. Over the years the cities
and villages in the township had annexed bits and pieces until the township itself consisted of two physically separated
areas. A corridor connecting the two was included in the incorporation papers and accounts for the unusual barbell
configuration of the city.The first settlers in what is today Dearborn Heights arrived around 1816. In 1824, the first school was built of logs on a farm belonging to Joseph Hickcox, a Methodist preacher and circuit rider. It became known as "the Little Red School House" and was the site of the first Dearborn Township meeting. Although the school continued to exist, it was modified over the years. Now it has been restored to its early structure and local school children can experience an 1880's school day using McGuffy Readers, slate boards and slate pencils.
Dearborn Heights is located within a fifteen minute drive of Detroit Metropolitan Airport and has easy access to the Interstate 94 and 96 freeways. With its pleasant, well-maintained residential streets, it has been tagged a "bedroom community." This does not bother its citizens who see it as a neighborly, clean and convenient place to live.
