SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT PROGRAM IN Dearborn

Dearborn

Dearborn is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An inner-ring suburb of Detroit, Dearborn borders Detroit to the north and east, roughly 7 miles west of downtown Detroit. In the 2020 census, it had a population of 109,976, ranking as the seventh-most populous city in Michigan. Dearborn is best known as the hometown of the Ford Motor Company and of its founder, Henry Ford. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 24.5 square miles.

The first written settlement of Dearborn is from the 18th century by French Canadian voyageurs who initially called the settlement La Belle Fontaine or Place aux Fontaines because of the abundant springs in the city. Therefore, Dearborn was once named Springwells, an anglicization of the French name. The community grew in the 19th century with the establishment of the Detroit Arsenal on the Chicago Road linking Detroit and Chicago. On January 9, 1929, Clyde Ford was elected as the first mayor of Dearborn following the consolidation of the city of Fordson and Dearborn township into one municipality.

Dearborn owes much of its growth to automotive pioneer Henry Ford, who began building his famous River Rouge Complex in 1917. The River Rouge complex at its peak represented the world’s largest integrated factory system, spanning over 1,000 acres and employing up to 100,000 workers. Ford Motor Company’s world headquarters, known as the “Glass House,” was dedicated on September 26, 1956, and remains in Dearborn to this day. From 1924 to 1947, Dearborn was the site of Ford Airport, featuring the world’s first concrete runway and the first scheduled U.S. passenger service.

Dearborn residents are Americans primarily of European or Middle Eastern ancestry, many descendants of 19th and 20th-century immigrants. New waves of immigration came from the Middle East in the late 20th century, mostly Muslims and far fewer Christian minorities from Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Dearborn has the proportionally largest Muslim population in the United States and the largest mosque in North America. In 2023, Dearborn became the first Arab-majority city in the US, with 55% of its residents claiming to be of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry in a 2023 survey. The city has the largest proportion of Arab Americans in the United States and has been called the “Capital of Arab America.”

The Arab American National Museum opened in 2005, the first museum in the world devoted to Arab American history and culture. The Islamic Center of America, located on Ford Road, is the largest mosque in North America at 120,000 square feet.

Dearborn has a mayor-council form of government. Abdullah Hussein Hammoud is an American politician serving as the 7th mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, since 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, Hammoud is the first Arab-American, Lebanese-American, and first Muslim mayor of Dearborn. He won re-election on November 4, 2025, defeating his opponent with about 71–72 percent of the vote.

More recent additions to Dearborn’s cultural landscape include The Henry Ford — a reconstructed historic village and museum — the Henry Ford Centennial Library, the super-regional shopping mall Fairlane Town Center, and the Ford Performing Arts Center. The Henry Ford museum complex, which also includes Greenfield Village, is one of the most visited attractions in Michigan and celebrates American innovation and history. The open land on the Ford estate is planted with sunflowers and often with Ford’s favorite crop of soybeans. The crops are never harvested.

The University of Michigan–Dearborn, opened in 1959, and Henry Ford College serve as the city’s primary institutions of higher education. Major employers beyond Ford include the Henry Ford Health System (formerly Oakwood Healthcare) and a range of manufacturing, defense, and technology firms.

Notable people from Dearborn include Henry Ford (1863–1947), founder of Ford Motor Company; Rashida Tlaib, U.S. Representative and first Palestinian-American woman elected to Congress; and Abdullah Hammoud, the city’s current mayor and nationally recognized Arab-American political leader.

City of Dearborn