Highland Park Ford Plant

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

This article is about the assembly plant in Highland Park, Michigan. For the assembly plant in the Highland Park area of Saint Paul, Minnesota, see Twin Cities Assembly Plant.
Highland Park Ford Plant
Farm Mechanics 1922 Ford Highland Park cropped.png
The Highland Park plant in 1922
Location 91 Manchester Avenue at Woodward
Highland Park, Michigan
Built 1910
Architect Albert Kahn; Edward Gray
NRHP Reference # 73000961
Significant dates
Added to NRHP February 6, 1973[1]
Designated NHL June 2, 1978[2]
Designated MSHS April 17, 1956

The Highland Park Ford Plant is a former factory located at 91 Manchester Avenue (at Woodward Avenue) in Highland Park, Michigan. The second production facility for the Model T automobile, it became a National Historic Landmark in 1978.[1]

History

The Highland Park Ford Plant was a production plant for Ford Motor Company in the city of Highland Park, Michigan, which is surrounded by Detroit. The Highland Park Ford Plant was designed by Albert Kahn Associates in 1908 and was opened in 1910. Ford automotive production had previously taken place at the facility known as the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant.

The complex included offices, factories, a power plant and a foundry.[3] Over 120 acres in size the Highland Park Plant was the largest manufacturing facility in the world at the time of its opening. Because of its spacious design, it set the precedent for many factories and production plants built thereafter.

On 7 October 1913, the Highland Park Ford Plant became the first automobile production facility in the world to implement the moving assembly line.[4] The new assembly line improved production time of the Model T from 728 to 93 minutes. The Highland Parks assembly line lowered the price of the Model T from $700 in 1910 to $350 in 1917 making it an affordable automobile for most Americans.[5] Ford offered nearly three times the wages paid at other unskilled manufacturing plants.[6]

In the late 1920s Ford moved automobile assembly to the River Rouge Plant complex in nearby Dearborn. Automotive trim manufacturing and tractor assembly continued at the Highland Park plant.

As of 2011, it had been used by Ford Motor Company to store documents and for artifact storage for the Henry Ford Museum. A portion is also occupied by a Forman Mills clothing warehouse that opened in 2006.[7]

Current Status

The Woodward Avenue Action Association has a purchase agreement with the complex's owner, National Equity Corp., to pay $550,000 for two of eight buildings at the historic Ford manufacturing complex: a four-floor, 40,000-square-foot administration building and the 8,000-square-foot executive garage near it. The center would include a theater with continuous videos, informational kiosks, interpretive displays on automotive history and a gift/coffee/snack shop. It could also be a place where visitors could pick up historical automotive tours, such as the current tour offered by the Woodward group, "In the Steps of Henry."[8]

In the media

The plant was used as a location for director Shawn Levy's 2011 Disney/Touchstone Pictures film Real Steel.[9]

Gallery

  • Highland Park Ford plant, c. 1922

  • Highland Park Ford plant, c. 1922

  • Highland Park Ford plant.jpg

  • South side streetscape of the Highland Park Ford plant complex

  • Large building that is part of the Ford plant complex (now the Highland Park Industrial Center)

See also

References

<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

Cite error: Invalid <references> tag; parameter "group" is allowed only.

Use <references />, or <references group="..." />

External links

Media related to Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. at Wikimedia Commons

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Woodward Avenue Action Association - Preserve Ford Highland Park
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ http://www.woodwardavenue.org/uploaded_pics/pdf/pdf-20110128102909.pdf
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Highland_Park_Ford_Plant&oldid=2094893"