Ford Piquette Plant

Completed in 1904, the Piquette Avenue Plant was the first factory built by the Ford Motor Company. The building was designed by the Detroit firm of Field, Hinchman and Smith. Models B, C, F, K, N, R, S, and T were produced here between 1904 and 1910 when Ford became the world’s largest producer of automobiles. In 1908 Henry Ford, C. Harold Wills, Joseph Galamb and others designed the Model T, the first automobile built for the masses. Seeking more efficiency, Ford experimented with aspects of the moving assembly line at Piquette. New technology and demand for the Model T made the plant inadequate. In 1910 production moved to a much larger plant in Highland Park where the moving assembly line was implemented. The Studebaker Corporation purchased the Piquette Avenue Plant in 1911.