Many organizations have left their mark on Detroit’s 300 years as a city, but few have impacted the community as much as the Detroit Athletic Club (DAC). Like a boulder in the middle of a river, the DAC has shaped more than 100 years of Detroit history since it was established in 1887. The original club, founded by a group of privileged young men under the spell of amateur athletics sweeping the country at the time, was later reborn in 1913 by a group of the city’s prominent automotive and industrial leaders. They reorganized the DAC and commissioned famed architect Albert Kahn to design the magnificent six-story Clubhouse that stands today in the center of the city’s theatre and sports district.

The original DAC clubhouse, which no longer exists, was located just south of the cultural heart of Detroit along Woodward Avenue. That first facility was designed primarily as an athletic center with a cinder running track, baseball diamonds, bowling alleys and, later on, a full gymnasium. Many of the members of the original club would later be instrumental in the creation of the current Detroit Athletic Club. As the 19th century rolled into the 20th, the DAC fell on hard times — many of its young members, some of whom went off to fight in the Spanish-American War, began to lose interest in amateur sports and focused instead on business development and the growing automobile industry.

The first club might have closed down, save for the efforts of John Kelsey, who personally funded it for a number of years. When the new clubhouse opened in April of 1915, it was the culmination of the careful plans and dreams of more than 100 prominent Detroiters, many of whom were automotive pioneers. Names like Chalmers, Jewett, Kelsey, Joy, Lodge, Metzger, Hughes, Navin and Scripps will forever be associated with the Club’s 20th-century rebirth and its place as a home to industrial titans. Traditionally, the new DAC was born on Jan. 4, 1913, when 109 leading citizens of Detroit met at the Pontchartrain Hotel to sign articles of association and organize a framework of committees to start the club on its way.

It made sense for the new club to carry forward the name and  traditions of the first group —Henry Joy, who called that meeting together, and John Kelsey, president of the old club for many years, worked diligently to reach that milestone date. Nearly a year before the meeting, men like Abner Larned, Harry Jewett and Charles Hughes clamored for the organization of a new club catering to business and community leaders. By the end of 1912, an organizational structure was in place, leading to that 1913 gathering. The group hired automotive architect Albert Kahn to design the new clubhouse. So spectacular was the interior beauty of Kahn’s Madison Avenue building that the official opening in 1915 became a major milestone in Detroit history.