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Think Ford's first: Masons renovate façade at Ford's Piquette plant

Date Posted: August 22 2008

In many areas of the old Ford Piquette plant you still see and smell the oil that workers who built Henry Ford's first cars spilled onto the maple floor years ago. The exposed massive pine timber support columns are original, as is the sprinkler system suspended from the ceilings.

The exposed interior of the plant is basically unchanged from when the plant was constructed a century ago, which adds to its appeal as an historic site and tourist destination. And what a history the Piquette plant offers: completed in 1904, it was the first factory built by Henry Ford, and his early Models B, C, F, K, N, R, S, and T were assembled here before Ford Motor Co. outgrew the space and moved in 1910. Ford dabbled with aspects of the moving assembly line at the Piquette plant.

The plant, in Detroit's New Center area, went through various owners over the years after Ford moved his operations from Piquette and Beaubien streets to an even bigger plant in Highland Park. The Piquette plant came very close to demolition in the late 1990s, but was saved when it was purchased by the Model T Automotive Heritage Complex (T-Plex). The group of volunteers is slowly reviving the historic plant - all the while keeping it open to the public as a museum in the warmer months - and masonry restoration on the front of the building is atop their list.

"Someone needs to do this, or a part of history will be lost," said Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Local 1 foreman Mike Alterman, working for masonry restoration contractor Grunwell-Cashero. "They just put Detroit on the list of dying cities, but you look at work like this, maybe we're the renovation city."

Grunwell-Cashero masons have been working at the plant since the end of June. Their work is made possible by a combination of federal grant money and local matching funds totaling $200,000 to completely restore the narrow front of the brick building.

The entire front façade of the three-story plant will be re-tuckpointed during this project, and about 40 percent of the bricks will be replaced with matching masonry, said Grunwell-Cashero Superintendent Joe Dapkus, Jr. He said the replacement brick won't be new, but will come from a company that saves old common brick from demolished buildings for use in restoration projects.

At some point the front of the Piquette plant was painted white, but that was stripped during this restoration. The masonry walls are a solid 16 inches thick. "The sides of the building are in pretty decent shape for a 100-year-old building," Dapkus said. "It has definitely withstood the test of time."

Light and ventilation were provided by 355 windows, which are being restored by volunteer labor. "Long and narrow buildings of this type were favored among businesses at the time because they afforded the maximum amount of daylight to the interior through the many large windows," said a history of the plant written by Trent Boggess. "Industrial electrical lighting was still in its infancy, and most factories still relied on daylight as their primary source of interior light. The windows also provided ventilation throughout the building."

The plant is only 56 feet wide, but it extends 402 feet. A worker once told Henry Ford that he doubted the company would ever use all the space in the three-story, 67,000 square-foot building.

Ford and his employees built the company's first 12,000 cars in the plant. One of the T-Plex museum's directors, Michael Skinner, said the building is also significant because it was where Ford first experimented with the idea of the moving assembly line - by using a rope to pull a car frame on wheels past workers who attached parts, instead of having workers move from car to car to do their work.

According to a history provided by the Ford Motor Co., Ford sold the building to the Studebaker Corp. in January 1911. The company built an attached Albert Kahn-designed parts storage and service building in 1920. Subsequent owners were the 3M Corporation, Cadillac Overall Co. and Heritage Investments.

As part of the festivities celebrating the 100th birthday of the Model T, the front of the building is being restored and coats of paint and years of grime are being carefully removed from the building's exterior before a large historic marker and period-correct signage is installed. The building and its home club of Model T aficionados, the Piquette Ts, are also hosting several events in September as part of the vehicle's 2008 centennial celebration.

The T-Plex group hosts tours, luncheons, dinners and even weddings in the building. The building has numerous cars and related items on display, as well as placards that explain the building's history. Henry Ford's small office is marked off on the second floor of the building, with an exact replica of his desk. In the opposite corner of the building, on the third floor, was Ford's favorite place in the building, the Experimental Room. Here, in a small corner of the building, the Model T was developed in 1907 and 1908, according to information provided by Ford Motor Co.

Richard Rubens, who is on the T-Plex Board of Directors, said future wish-list projects that the group wants to undertake at the Piquette Plant are to re-roof the building and install a new sprinkler system - which is a vital consideration in an all-wood building.

"You take a walk through and this see that this is a pretty amazing building," Dapkus said. "Not only the construction of it, but look at the old photos and you can see that the inside hasn't changed much since they were building cars."
(For more information on the Piquette plant, go to www.tplex.org or call (313) 872-8759).


ON THE NATIONAL Register of Historic Places, Henry Ford's Piquette Street plant in Detroit was his first factory and for six years, was the assembly area for his fledgling company's first 12,000 cars, including the Model T. The original construction cost was $76,500, but it went over budget.
MIXING MORTAR near a side entrance at the Piquette plant is Mike Alterman of BAC Local 1 and Grunwell Cashero.