November 3, 1930: The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel Opens

The Detroit Entrance

November 3, 1930: The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel opens, connecting Detroit, Michigan, in the United States with Windsor, Ontario, Canada, under the Detroit River. 

Detroit and Buffalo are the only major American cities on the border with Canada, our northern neighbor. Seattle is 111 miles away, Boston 220, Minneapolis 300, and New York 330. And because of the bend of the Detroit River, Detroit is the only place where you can go from north to south, and go from America to Canada.

The Windsor Entrance

The Tunnel followed a ferry system, a rail tunnel that opened in 1910, and the Ambassador Bridge that opened in 1929.

Being a border crossing, with Customs stations at each end, it takes longer to get through than, say, the Lincoln Tunnel in New York. And large trucks are not allowed. For these reasons, many drivers prefer the Ambassador Bridge.

CKLW, 800 on the AM dial, is a Windsor-based radio station, not bound by regulations of America's FCC, so it can have a signal more powerful than the American limit of 50,000 watts. Calling itself "The Big 8," it became the Detroit area's main Top 40 music station in the 1960s, and bought the rights to have the Tunnel rewired, so that its signal could be picked up inside. WJR, Detroit's top news station, later did the same.

The midpoint, with flags

In 2007, Matty Moroun, owner of the Ambassador Bridge, tried to monopolize Detroit-to-Windsor (and back) traffic by buying the Tunnel from the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel Company, LLC. They refused to sell.

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November 3, 1930 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season started 8 days later. So there were no scores on this historic day.