Oakland County, Michigan: History
Founded by Territorial Governor Lewis Cass in 1819, sparsely populated Oakland County was formed from Macomb County on 28 March 1820. As was customary at the time, as populations increased, other counties were organized from its land area. Over the next 16 years, Oakland lost territory to the creation of the counties of Lapeer (10 Sep 1822), Saginaw (10 Sep 1822), Sanilac (10 Sep 1822), Shiawassee (10 Sep 1822), Washtenaw (10 Sep 1822), Barry (29 Oct 1829), Calhoun (29 Oct 1829), Eaton (29 Oct 1829), Ingham (29 Oct 1829), Jackson (29 Oct 1829), Kalamazoo (29 Oct 1829), Arenac (2 Mar 1831), Gladwin (2 Mar 1831), Midland (2 Mar 1831), Livingston (21 Mar 1833), and Genesee (28 Mar 1835).
Woodward Avenue and the Detroit and Pontiac Railroad helped draw settlers in the 1840s. By 1840, Oakland had more than fifty lumber mills, processing wood harvested from the region and the Upper Peninsula. Pontiac, located on the Clinton River, was Oakland's first town and became the county seat. After the Civil War, Oakland was still primarily a rural, agricultural county with numerous isolated villages. By the end of the 19th century, three rail lines served Pontiac, and the city attracted carriage and wagon factories. In the late 1890s streetcars were constructed here and operated between Detroit.
At that time, developers made southern Oakland County a suburb of Detroit; a Cincinnati firm platted a section of Royal Oak called "Urbanrest". Migration worked both ways. Several thousand people moved from Oakland County farms to Detroit as the city attracted factories. By 1910, a number of rich Detroiters had summer homes and some year-round residences in what became Bloomfield Hills. The auto age enveloped Pontiac in the early 1900s. The Oakland Motor Car Company was founded in 1907 and became a part of General Motors Corp., which was soon Pontiac's dominant firm.
In the 1950s, Oakland County's population boomed as Detroiters began migrating to the suburbs. While the neighboring Macomb County was more inhabited by auto workers and other blue-collar workers, Oakland County's residents tended to be more affluent and generally white-collar (e.g. doctors, lawyers). Oakland County was for a time the fourth-wealthiest county in the United States, though its position has declined somewhat since the Great Recession. The median price of a home in Oakland County increased to $164,697, more than $30,000 above the national median home value. Oakland County is home to several super-regional shopping malls such as Oakland Mall, Somerset Collection, Twelve Oaks Mall, and Great Lakes Crossing Outlets.