Community
Highland Park was still a rural farming community
north of Detroit in the early 1900s when Henry Ford
chose the community as site for his first great
factory. Built east of Woodward Avenue, the Ford
plant marked the early emergence of the moving
assembly line process for which Ford became famous.
It was here in Highland Park, in this "birthplace of
mass production," that Ford produced millions of
Model T cars. And it was to Highland Park that tens
of thousands of immigrants came for an unprecedented
$5-a-day wage and a chance to enter the emerging
middle class.
The boom that swelled the
population of
Highland Park also worked wonders on its neighbor to
the south, the City of Detroit. Detroit literally
grew up and around Highland Park in the 1920's, so
that today Highland Park exists entirely within the
boundaries of its much larger neighbor.
The Ford-inspired boom saw the construction of
thousands of new middle-class residences in Highland
Park, many of which are now part of two National
Historic Districts. City benefactors also built
churches, stores and a library as proud signs of
prosperity.
In 1942, the city saw the completion of the first
modern limited access urban expressway in America -
the Davison Freeway. Fifty-five years later, a
widened, rebuilt, more accessible Davison Freeway -
a $46 million commitment to our future by the
Michigan Department of Transportation- carries
Highland Park commerce and residents into the 21st
Century.
Highland Park led the way with innovative housing
and retail development along Woodward Avenue in the
early 1990s.
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