3001 Miller Road
Dearborn, Wayne County

Designation and Designation Date

• National Historic Landmark, listed June 2, 1978
• National Register, listed June 2, 1978
• Marker, erected September 1, 1977
• State Register, listed December 14, 1976

Architect, Builder, or Designer(s)

• Albert Kahn, architect

Associated Person(s)

• Henry Ford

Significant Date(s), Notes

• 1915, Ford purchased the land upon which the River Rouge Complex would eventually be built
• 1927, the final assembly line was shifted from Highland Park to the River Rouge Complex
• 1927, manufacture of the Model A began

Significance Statement

The River Rouge Complex is one of the industrial wonders of the world, an integrated operations plant encompassing all basic steps in automobile production. Shortly before 1920, Henry Ford (1863-1947) began to shift his production from the Highland Park location to this 2,000-acre site on the Rouge River. By the late 1930s, Ford had built more than two dozen steel-and-glass, single-story buildings, all designed by Albert Kahn.

The Rouge was the largest single manufacturing complex in the United States, with peak employment of about 120,000 during World War II. Here Henry Ford achieved self-sufficiency and vertical integration in automobile production, a continuous work flow from iron ore and other raw materials to finished automobiles. The complex included dock facilities, blast furnaces, open-hearth steel mills, foundries, a rolling mill, metal stamping facilities, an engine plant, a glass manufacturing building, a tire plant, and its own power house supplying steam and electricity.

For information about any of the programs described on this site, write the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office, Michigan Historical Center, P.O. Box 30740, 702 W. Kalamazoo St., Lansing, MI 48909-8240, or call us at (517) 373-1630.