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Visits of Greenfield Village are closed until Sprint 2025-1

Events at the Village are still running!

Visits of Greenfield Village are closed until Sprint 2025

Events at the Village are still running!

Henry Ford's Model T

Overview

Trace the life of Henry Ford and see the home where he was born, his Bagley Avenue workshop and more.

Henry Ford's Model T in Greenfield Village

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about this exhibit

Trace the life of Henry Ford, one of America's greatest industrialists and innovators, from his childhood through the founding of Ford Motor Company. Move from the home where he was born to a replica of the factory where he built his first automobiles. You can even take a test ride in a restored Model T.

Highlights

Ford Home

Henry Ford was born in this farmhouse on July 30, 1863. The house stood near the corner of present-day Ford and Greenfield Roads in Dearborn, Michigan. Ford grew up in the house and moved out at age 16 to find work in Detroit. He restored the farmhouse in 1919 and moved it to Greenfield Village in 1944.

Henry Ford Theater (Edsel Ford Workshop)

When Edsel Ford passed away in 1943, Henry and Clara Ford constructed this building to memorialize their son. It was based on a workshop that father and son shared above the garage at the family home in Detroit's Boston-Edison neighborhood, where the Fords lived while Edsel was a teenager. The short posts framing the door are from the original site.

Miller School

Henry Ford attended Miller School at age nine. He followed a favorite teacher, John Chapman, there from the Scotch Settlement School. The small, one-room building was typical of rural schools throughout the United States in the 1800s. Ford had this replica built in Greenfield Village in the early 1940s.

Bagley Avenue Workshop

Henry Ford transformed the storage shed behind his family's rented duplex at 58 Bagley Avenue in Detroit into a workshop. Here, in 1896, he built his first car — the "Quadricycle." In 1933, Ford reconstructed the shed in Greenfield Village. The original shed had been torn down, so he reportedly used bricks from a wall of the Bagley Avenue residence instead.

Ford Motor Company (Mack Avenue Plant)

Henry Ford's third automobile company, formed in 1903, set up shop in a former wagon factory on Detroit's Mack Avenue. Ford's small crew assembled Model A cars from components made elsewhere. Within 18 months, Ford Motor Company moved to a larger facility on Piquette Avenue. This building is a replica about one-fourth the size of the original Mack Avenue plant.

More to Explore

Two staff members ride on historic bicycles down Main Street in Greenfield Village while guests walk by.

Main Street

Experience the beating pulse of the village, a bustling place of automobiles and carriages, events and amusements.

Railroad Junction

Come inside the great history of railroading, an unforgettable display of America’s early industrial muscle.