Greenfield Village - Ford Mack Avenue Plant Replica

The Ford Mack Avenue Plant, a rented wagon manufacturing shop in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, was the first facility used by the

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...

to assemble automobiles.

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that m ...

began to occupy it in April 1903 in preparation for the company's incorporation, which occurred on June 16, 1903. Production of the original Ford Model A began that same month after the incorporation. Soon after, the building was expanded and a second story was added to increase production. The Model A was followed by the Model AC, which was a Model A with the larger Ford Model C

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

. Most of the major car components were manufactured by outside companies, including the "running gear" (the

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpa ...

, engine, transmission,

drive shaft A drive shaft, driveshaft, driving shaft, tailshaft (Australian English), propeller shaft (prop shaft), or Cardan shaft (after Girolamo Cardano) is a component for transmitting mechanical power and torque and rotation, usually used to connect ...

, and

axle An axle or axletree is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to the vehicle, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, beari ...

s), which was supplied by the Dodge Brothers Company. A total of 1,708 cars (670 Model A's and 1,038 Model AC's) were assembled at the Mack Avenue Plant. The company occupied the building until October 1904, when its manufacturing operations were moved to the

Ford Piquette Avenue Plant The Ford Piquette Avenue Plant is a former factory located within the Milwaukee Junction area of Detroit, Michigan, in the United States. Built in 1904, it was the second center of automobile production for the Ford Motor Company, after the F ...

in Detroit, where the

Ford Model T The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relat ...

would later be built. The Mack Avenue Plant's address was originally 588–592 Mack Avenue when Ford Motor Company occupied the building. Its address became 6520 Mack Avenue after the city of Detroit changed its street numbering system in January 1921. The building burned down in August 1941. A replica of the Mack Avenue Plant, one-fourth the size of the original, was built in 1945 at Greenfield Village, an

open-air museum An open-air museum (or open air museum) is a museum that exhibits collections of buildings and artifacts out-of-doors. It is also frequently known as a museum of buildings or a folk museum. Definition Open air is “the unconfined atmosphere� ...

Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 109,976. Dearborn is the seventh most-populated city in Michigan and is home to the largest Muslim population in the United States pe ...

References

{{Coord, 42.3624, -83.0183, type:city_region:US-MI, display=title Ford factories Former motor vehicle assembly plants Industrial buildings and structures in Detroit Motor vehicle assembly plants in Michigan

See also

References