William C. Maybury Monument

01 / The story of this place

Make time for these

William Cotter Maybury served as Detroit's city attorney in the late 1870s, won two terms in the U.S. Congress in the 1880s, and then served as Detroit's mayor from 1897 to 1904, a period of fast growth for the city just before the automobile industry took off. After his death, the city commissioned sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman, one of the leading American Beaux-Arts sculptors of the era, to design a memorial for him, and it was unveiled in Grand Circus Park in 1912 at a cost of twenty-two thousand dollars. Weinman set a bronze statue of Maybury on a granite pedestal in front of a twelve-foot wall carved with an idealized family scene and topped by the City of Detroit's seal. The statue originally stood facing his old political rival Hazen Pingree across Woodward Avenue; a 1957 parking garage project moved Maybury to the park's north end, where it still stands today with its back to Pingree.

1. Unveiled in 1912, sculpted by Adolph Alexander Weinman
2. Honors William C. Maybury, Detroit's mayor from 1897 to 1904
3. Cost twenty-two thousand dollars to build
4. Moved to the park's north end after 1957 construction work