The Packard Plant is a large automotive plant designed by Albert Kahn and built by Henry Joy from 1907-1911. At a time when there were many automotive plants in Detroit, Kahn’s industrial designs stood out for meeting modern requirements for mass manufacturing processes. Reinforced concrete structures were essential for fire resistance and load bearing weight distribution for heavy machinery required for making cars. Ford’s Highland Park Plant and the Fisher 21 Body Plant share similar design and functional elements.

There were many other car companies located around the Milwaukee Junction due to their close proximity to the railways. From the early 1920’s onwards there were influential car companies such as Ford, Studebaker, EMF, Hudson, Hupp, Pierce Arrow, General Motors and Continental Motors plants. The Great Depression of the 1930’s destroyed many of these plants as they were forced to merge with other companies or go bankrupt. Packard made fighter engines for the allies in World War II. In spite lucrative military contracts, Packard and many other companies could not recover and faded away into history. Packard Motors famous promotional tagline was “Packard ask a man who owns one”. To this day, Packard cars still have loyal fans, however the factory that made them has not been protected by heritage status. Packard closed its doors in the late 1950’s and other businesses and storage sites continued to use the site until the city of Detroit tried to evict tenants in order to partially demolish the plant in 2000-2001.

Exploring the entire site can easily take an entire day or more. Even after several trips, there were still many places left unexplored until the summer of 2008

Compiled from A34-3 – A44-13 (April 2006 – July 2007) archives.

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