The Ford Motor Company's first factory stood at what is now 6520 Mack Avenue, in a former wagon shop beside a rail line. The building belonged to the contractor Albert Strelow, who also put $5,000 into the company alongside the coal dealer Alexander Malcomson, Henry Ford's main backer. It was enlarged and given a second storey soon after Ford moved in. The company was incorporated in June 1903 with twelve investors and $28,000 in cash. Almost nothing was made there. The Dodge brothers built the engines and chassis, outside firms supplied the bodies, and a small crew at Mack Avenue put the parts together. The money was very nearly gone before the first sale: the bank balance stood at $223.65 on 10 July 1903, five days before a Chicago dentist, Dr. Ernst Pfennig, ordered a Model A. Ford stayed about eighteen months, then moved in the autumn of 1904 to a new plant on Piquette Avenue. The Mack Avenue building passed through a series of tenants and burned in August 1941. The company built a replica at Greenfield Village in 1945, but it is a wood-frame reconstruction that differs from the original in proportions and in the placing of its doors and windows.
Getting there
42.3623, -83.0186
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop is an audio tour guide app that tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
