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Friday Update: The Highland Police Department and investigators from the Michigan Humane Society were scheduled to check on the horse's condition. No details were available on their visits. Deadline Detroit visited the horse about noon and found it standing in a shadow of one of the walls in its compound that afforded a small bit of temporary shade.
Thursday afternoon: It stood quietly in Thursday’s severe heat, nibbling on stubs of grass and weeds in its corral -- a shadeless lot littered with tires and trash and framed by graffiti-scarred buildings.
Vehicles rush by on nearby E. McNichols, but the view of passers-by is blocked by a barbed-wire fence that is covered with a tarp.
One line of graffiti says, “The final frontier.”
Meet the loneliest horse in Highland Park.
Yes, a horse in Highland Park.
It’s probably the only horse in Highland Park, this chestnut-colored male that, to an untrained eye, appeared to be lean, but not severely malnourished, though it seemed to have a couple of sores, and one observer believed it might have a problem with one of its rear legs.
There are no trees or other places where the horse could get shade or shelter in a week when the heat index reached more than 100 degrees and violent thunderstorms raked metro Detroit. A wooden tub in the corral could have contained water, but the view inside the tub was blocked from the street.
It is unclear why there is a horse behind the covered fence off of E. McNichols, near Oakland, invisible to the passing world.
Sgt. Jamille Edwards, the afternoon supervisor for the Highland Park Police, said she did not know if it is against the law to have a horse inside the city limits. Horses and other large animals are usually not allowed in cities without special permission.
“I never ran across that before,” she said.
The Humane Society of Michigan said it would dispatch a crew to the site as soon as possible to evaluate the horse’s condition.
The area is largely abandoned, though a relatively new gate and barbed wire encloses the rear of the horse’s property, and one of the adjacent buildings has a roll-down gate over its door that also appears to be relatively new.
An old and rusty horse trailer sits inside the gate, its hitch resting on a cinder block. A tree house, seemingly abandoned, perches overhead.
Yes, a tree house. An abandoned tree house.
Left: the horse trailer. Right: the tree house.A small sign on the locked gate reads: “Trespassing at this facility is a FEDERAL CRIME.
"You are entering a federally authorized Foreign Trade Zone. Theft from this zone is a felony, punishable in federal prison.”
A federal trade zone is generally described as an area that is a restricted-access site in, or adjacent to, a U.S. Customs port of entry. There are larger warehouses in the area, and much barbed wire.
Still, there was no apparent explanation why a horse would be grazing inside a foreign trade zone in Highland Park.
Left: An adjacent building. Right: Trade zone sign.Come back to Deadline Detroit Friday for follow-up coverage of the Highland Park horse.
