Finance History | 461 Piquette Avenue — The First Model T Left This Mill

People treat Ford as a River Rouge story, or as the moving line at Highland Park.

The first Model T did not leave either of those plants.

Ford Motor Company, formed in 1903, outgrew a rented wagon shop on Mack Avenue within a year.

On 1 April 1904 the stockholders authorized the purchase of 3.11 acres on Piquette Avenue for 23,500 dollars.

That same month the board authorized 76,500 dollars for construction.

The brick mill that went up here, designed by Field, Hinchman and Smith, was the firm's first purpose-built factory.

Models B, C, F, K, N, R and S were assembled in it.

A locked experimental room on the third floor, partitioned in January 1907, is where the Model T was developed.

The first production Model T was completed in this building on 27 September 1908.

Eleven cars left in October.

By December output had reached about 200 a month.

Demand closed the order book for two months from 1 May 1909.

Assembly moved to the new Highland Park plant in January 1910.

Ford sold the Piquette building to Studebaker in January 1911.

The mill is now a National Historic Landmark museum at 461 Piquette Avenue.

It is the oldest purpose-built car factory open to the public.

Ford Motor Company remains an S&P 500 automobile manufacturer.

The mechanism that started here is the one that later filled Highland Park.

A cheap, repairable car was designed in a locked room, then built until the building itself was too small.

Photo: Andrew Jameson, GFDL and CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons.