Famous people's places / Ypsilanti
Eastern Michigan University
Michigan's oldest teacher-training college, founded in Ypsilanti in 1849, where techno pioneer Kevin Saunderson studied and played football.
01 / The story of this place
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Eastern Michigan University traces back to 1849, when the state of Michigan chartered Michigan State Normal School in Ypsilanti — the first teacher-training college west of the original thirteen states. The school expanded over the following century, becoming Michigan State Normal College in 1899, Eastern Michigan College in 1956, and finally Eastern Michigan University in 1959. Techno pioneer Kevin Saunderson, one of Detroit's 'Belleville Three' who helped invent techno music, studied telecommunications and played football at Eastern Michigan in the early 1980s before turning his attention full-time to music and founding Detroit's KMS Records. The university today enrolls tens of thousands of students on its Ypsilanti campus, a short drive from Detroit and Ann Arbor.
- Founded in 1849 as Michigan State Normal School, the first teacher-training college outside New England
- Became Eastern Michigan University in 1959
- Techno pioneer Kevin Saunderson studied here and played football in the early 1980s
- One of Michigan's largest public universities today
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 2
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Kevin Saunderson born 1964 · DJ, record producer, label owner
Studied here
He studied telecommunications and played football here before turning to music.
- Eddie Fowlkes born 1962 · DJ, record producer, label owner
Studied here
Where he met Juan Atkins and joined the Deep Space DJ collective.
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Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
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Official website & visitor information ↗