Politics / Business & brands / Military
Russell A. Alger
1836–1907 · lumber baron, Union general, governor of Michigan, secretary of war
Civil War cavalry commander and Detroit-based lumber baron who became Michigan governor and secretary of war; his memorial fountain stands in Grand Circus Park.
- Born
Lafayette Township, Medina County, Ohio- Died
Washington, D.C.
aged 70- Birth name
- Russell Alexander Alger
- Detroit years
- 1866–1907
- Field
- Politics, Business & brands, Military
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Russell Alger grew up poor in Ohio, worked in the lumber trade in Grand Rapids and rose to colonel of the 5th Michigan Cavalry in the Civil War, fighting at Gettysburg and later breveted a general. After the war he settled in Detroit as head of Alger, Smith & Company and the Manistique Lumbering Company, logging vast forests in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula and building the Detroit, Bay City and Alpena Railroad to move the timber. His fortune made him a pillar of Detroit's Republican establishment; he chaired party rallies in the city and in 1884 was elected governor. He later served as a U.S. senator and as President McKinley's secretary of war during the 1898 Spanish–American War, resigning amid criticism of the army's supply failures. He was buried at Elmwood Cemetery, and in 1921 the city dedicated a memorial fountain to him in Grand Circus Park.
Highlights
- Colonel of the 5th Michigan Cavalry; brevet major general
- 20th governor of Michigan, 1885–1887
- U.S. secretary of war, 1897–1899
- U.S. senator from Michigan, 1902–1907
- Alger Memorial Fountain by Daniel Chester French, Grand Circus Park (1921)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Memorial · 1921–
Russell A. Alger Memorial Fountain, Grand Circus Park
Fountain with an allegorical bronze figure of Michigan by sculptor Daniel Chester French and architect Henry Bacon, the team behind the Lincoln Memorial.
Buried here · 1907
Elmwood Cemetery
He is interred in Detroit's historic Elmwood Cemetery.