From the 1850s to the 1970s the Financial District in downtown Detroit was the economic heart of the city, and it stills retains an important banking and office presence today.

Banks began to locate along Jefferson Avenue in the Griswold and Shelby streets area in the 1830s.

Substantial office buildings, often containing banks in their street levels, began to line Griswold in the 1850s. Detroit's massive early twentieth-century auto industry-related growth and economic boom resulted in large-scale redevelopment of the area between 1900 and 1930, and another wave of development took place in the 1950s and early 1960s.

The Financial District continues today to be an important financial and office district in Detroit.

Information Provided by the National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places.