Detroit will soon give a permanent nod to one of its long-hidden cultural engines. A new Michigan Historical Marker to be placed along Seven Mile Road will formally identify the strip as Chaldean Town, recognizing the neighborhood that, for much of the 20th century, served as the cultural and economic heart of Detroit's Chaldean community.

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The marker -- sponsored through a grant program of the William G. Pomeroy Foundation and slated for installation by the Michigan History Center in 2026 -- is intended both as local recognition and as a public record of a community's imprint on Detroit. State markers are used across Michigan to highlight places that have shaped social, cultural, and economic life.

Chaldean Town's story began in the early 1900s, when immigrants from northern Iraq -- many from the village of Tel Keif -- settled on Detroit's east side. Drawn by industrial opportunity and sustained by close family networks, they brought with them the Syriac language, a modern form of Aramaic, and the traditions of the Eastern Rite Roman Catholic Church. Those ties laid the foundation for a tightly knit community that would help shape the area for generations.

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By the 1970s and 1980s, Chaldean Town stretched from State Fair Avenue to Six Mile Road, with Seven Mile lined by Chaldean-owned businesses, homes, and churches. Grocery stores became an economic backbone, providing both employment and a path to stability for new arrivals. Religious institutions anchored community life, including Mother of God Church -- opened in 1948 as Michigan's first Chaldean Catholic church -- and Sacred Heart Chaldean Church, founded in 1974, both noted in the Chaldean News report.

As families prospered, many moved to the suburbs, a pattern echoed in immigrant enclaves across the United States. Today, an estimated nearly 200,000 Chaldeans call metro Detroit home, making it one of the largest Chaldean communities outside Iraq.

The marker itself is already complete and being stored at CCF West, the campus of the Chaldean Community Foundation, until installation. When unveiled along Seven Mile Road in 2026, it will stand as a permanent acknowledgment of the neighborhood's role in Detroit history -- and of the generations who built businesses, raised families, and shaped a distinctive cultural presence in the city.

For longtime residents and community leaders, the plaque is both recognition and reminder. It affirms that Chaldean Town mattered -- not only to those who lived there, but to the broader civic story of Detroit.