If you want to explore Mount Clemens, don’t start with a brochure. Start with Jeff Pollock.
The former director of the Crocker House Museum and current Executive Director of Detroit History Tours and the Detroit History Club doesn’t lead your typical walking tour. He doesn’t just point at a landmark and recite a date. Instead, he places you inside the moment. “You’re standing here,” he’ll say, “where Nixon and Kennedy gave campaign speeches—just feet apart, weeks apart, in 1960.”
Pollock’s fascination isn’t with plaques or podiums. It’s with the everyday spaces that used to hold extraordinary meaning: a curve in the road where a scion of wealth met a violent end that captivated the nation. A quiet city street once flooded so often, people kept boats by their porches. Rose gardens that were arguably the world’s finest.
Let’s start with Deadman’s Curve, the sharp bend near Cass and Romeo Plank where J. Stanley Brown—a Detroit cigar heir—was found dead in a car on Christmas Eve, 1919. The scene itself was eerie: snow falling, the car engine still warm, Brown slumped behind the wheel in tailored clothes and a fine overcoat.
Brown had filed for divorce from his wife Ruth that September, adding a layer of motive to what became one of Macomb County’s most confounding homicide cases. Ruth was arrested but released. Lloyd Prevost—Brown’s best friend, and Ruth’s cousin—was convicted, despite proclaiming his innocence and being placed with Brown by multiple witnesses that evening.
But the case wasn’t over yet. Years later, on his deathbed, a priest revealed a final shocking twist: Ruth’s father (and Lloyd’s uncle), Frank Prevost, had admitted to the murder during confession. Lloyd was pardoned, finally reclaiming his good name.
Newspapers across the country followed the case closely, fascinated by its blend of high society scandal and small-town justice. Deadman's Curve remains one of the region’s most chilling intersections of wealth, betrayal, and mistaken justice.
Boats near porches? That's part of Mount Clemens's hidden history too. For decades, seasonal flooding plagued the east side of Mount Clemens. Streets would swell with water, sometimes rising several feet, prompting residents to keep boats at the ready—just to reach their front steps. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century, through a series of viaducts and engineered drainage improvements, that the worst of the flooding was controlled. To longtime residents, those solutions weren’t just infrastructure—they were a turning point.
Or consider Nixon and Kennedy, whose dueling campaign speeches in the heart of downtown reflected more than just a crowded election calendar. They reflected Mount Clemens’ role as county seat for Macomb—a bellwether region for national politics, even then. A sculpture of Kennedy still stands nearby, immortalizing the moment.
And then there’s the story of the Mount Clemens cannons.
“They’re replicas,” Jeff admits. “The originals were donated to the war effort during WWII, melted down for scrap. That’s why they’re fake. But that’s also why they matter. It tells you what the people of Mount Clemens valued in that moment—sacrifice over symbolism.”
Jeff’s storytelling style doesn’t dwell in nostalgia. Instead, it crackles with detail. Like the lesser-known village of Warsaw, once an active enclave of Polish immigrants filled with homes, local businesses, and a train depot. Today, it’s barely marked, but fragments of its presence remain in city maps, real estate records, and old-timer stories. Eventually annexed by Mount Clemens, it’s now woven into the urban fabric so fully that most people don’t realize it was ever its own place. Jeff also tells us the nearby 'ghost towns,' like Meade and Disco, aren’t really ghost towns at all, just forgotten post offices or unincorporated villages.
Even the mineral baths Mount Clemens is famous for are rich with hidden history. They were a magnet for not just European royalty, but big-name entertainers—some of whom wintered here to play the circuit and soak in the sulfur-rich waters. The city’s fame was such that for a time, Mount Clemens rivaled Hot Springs, Arkansas.
And then there were the roses. In the first half of the 20th century, Mount Clemens was home to vast commercial rose gardens that supplied florists and events across the country. At one point, we were crowned the Rose Capital of the World. Though the greenhouses are long gone, the legacy blooms in old postcards, floral-themed memorabilia, and the memories of residents who still remember the scent drifting on summer winds.
“That’s the kind of history people walk past every day," Jeff concludes. "History is full of chances. Missed ones. Made ones. So I always tell people the best way to explore Mount Clemens is to start walking—because almost wherever you stand, something remarkable happened right there."
Almost wherever you stand [in Mount Clemens], something remarkable happened right there.