Preserving a Historical Detroit Landmark

It’s a historical building.  Important to Detroit and the automotive industry in America as the first home of Ford Motor Company.

The building is open to the public for tours but very few have seen the history inside the Ford Piquette Plant at the corner of Piquette and Beaubien on Detroit’s east side.

“It’s one of the most important buildings in the history of technology in the entire world and that’s because, primarily, it’s the birthplace of the Model T,” said Jerald Mitchell.

Mitchell is President of the Ford Piquette Street Plant, the non-profit organization that purchased the building in 2000.

The Model T is the car that put America on wheels.

“Henry Ford had this radical idea that he could build a car for the masses,” Mitchell said. “It was going to be simple, reliable and inexpensive and the culmination of that dream was the Model T. The idea was conceived here, the first prototypes were built here and the first 12,000 Model T’s were actually built in this factory.”

The building dates back to 1904.  It was the first building built and owned by Ford Motor Company.  Ford moved out in 1910 when they moved to a much larger facility in Highland Park to satisfy the demand for the Model T.

“The Ford Piquette Plant is the only early-automobile factory open to the public and what the visitors will see is an original, turn-of-the-century automobile factory in an amazing state of preservation,” Mitchell said. “There’s actually very little changed from when the time Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company was here.”

The building is open five days a week for public tours.
Click here for more information: http://tplex.org/