Milwaukee Junction was the heart of early automotive manufacturing in the U.S. Others refer to this area as the cradle of Detroit’s auto industry. The area was named for the railroad junction of the Detroit, Grand Haven, and Milwaukee Railway (later Grand Trunk) and the Chicago, Detroit, and Canada Grand Trunk Junction Railroad (later Grand Trunk Railway of Canada).
Originally developed in the 1890s to encourage industrial expansion in Detroit’s North End, the area was first home to businesses that produced wooden horse carriages. Later, over 20 businesses related to early automobile manufacturing were located in this area including Ford, Fisher Body, Regal, Studebaker, and more. Wooden carriage plants were replaced with metal stamping plants, numerous Fisher Body plants, assembly plants, and more.
Henry Ford’s Piquette Plant, built in 1904, was the first plant owned by Ford. It produced many Ford vehicles, including Models B, C, F, K, N, R, and S. In 1908, Henry Ford, C. Harold Wills, and Joseph Galamb spent nine months in a secret room of the plant developing the Model T, the first car designed to be priced to sell to the masses. The first 12,000 Model T cars were built at Piquette. At this plant, Ford developed concepts for a nationwide network of automobile dealerships. Also, the concept for the automobile assembly line was developed at Piquette and put in place in 1911 at the new Highland Park Plant. For more information, follow this link: https://www.fordpiquetteplant.org/about/history/
The Piquette Plant was sold to Studebaker, which operated there until 1933.
The image below shows the intersection of Hastings Street and Milwaukee Avenue, with railroad tracks above. This part of Milwaukee Junction has the few remaining blocks of Hastings Street in the city, which once stretched over 100 blocks and was home to hundreds of Black-owned businesses in Black Bottom, Paradise Valley, the Medical Center District, and the Cultural District.
The former Fisher Body 21 Plant is being redeveloped into Fisher 21 lofts. This ambitious project has commenced and is expected to be completed in 2027. For more information, follow this link: https://www.fisherlofts.com/
I created the map below from 1921 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps to highlight some of the key automobile manufacturing locations in this district in 1921. Have you ever wondered where all the Fisher Body Plants were in Detroit? I also created a separate map showing the location of many of the Fisher Body Plants. Follow this Google Map Link. Text from the Sanborn Map shown below indicates the presence of 19 Fisher Body Plants (1-16, and 21-23 plus the A.W. Fisher Building). There were over 40 total Fisher Body Plants in the Detroit, Cleveland, Flint, and Ontario, with the majority of them located in Detroit.
For more information, https://www.city-photos.com/detroit-history.
Rod Arroyo, FAICP, city planner and photographer