ABSTRACT

The Highland Park plant was not Ford’s last or largest investment in the Detroit area. Despite its massive size and moving assembly lines, Highland Park was regarded by Henry Ford as obsolete before it was finished. Ford acquired over 400 hectares of land in an undeveloped area southwest of Detroit along the banks of the Rouge River, now part of the city of Dearborn, and over the next decade constructed the world’s largest industrial complex devoted to the production of motor vehicles.