River Rouge Plant, Michigan

The River Rouge Plant was developed as the principal plant for the Ford Motor Company, built between 1917 and 1938, designed for Henry Ford by Albert Kahn. Nearly 100,000 people worked here at its peak. The Rouge had more than a square mile of vertically integrated production, going from piles of raw material coming in by boat for making steel, to finished cars, spread over 93 buildings, and nearly 16 million square feet of factory floor. Though the parts for Model T’s were produced at Rouge, the final assembly actually took place at the Highland Park assembly plant, a few miles away (and in other cities). Over the 19 year span of production, more than 16 million Model T’s were produced. In 1927, the Model T was finally replaced by the Model A, which were produced at the Rouge plant, from 1927 to 1931. Almost 5 million Model A’s were made, but by then it was just one among many cars being produced by American manufacturers. The connected steel sheds at the northern end of the Rouge Site cover more than 3 million square feet, and make engines, body parts, and house painting facilities for Ford vehicles, especially the F-150 Pickup, the most popular car sold in America for decades, which is made in a new tourist friendly Final Assembly Plant with a green roof at the north end of the Rouge Plant. Much of the rest of the original Rouge site is used for producing more than 3 million tons of steel per year, though the operation has been independent from Ford since the 1980s, and is now owned by Severstal Steel, a Russian company.