Highland Park

Where the moving assembly line started and Chrysler was born

People (2025 estimate): 8,248
Land area: 3.0 sq mi · 7.7 km²
From downtown: 5.7 miles · 9 km · northwest
Incorporated: 1918

Nothing on our calendar here this week yet.

Andrew Jameson ( talk ) at en.wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

01 / Why it matters

Why Highland Park matters

Highland Park is the other small city inside Detroit: it sits along Woodward Avenue about six miles north of downtown, almost completely surrounded by Detroit. It's tiny, but huge in auto history. Henry Ford opened his Albert Kahn-designed plant here in 1910, and in 1913 it became the first car factory in the world with a moving assembly line.

In 1914 Ford introduced the five-dollar day and the eight-hour shift here, and in 1925 Walter Chrysler founded the Chrysler Corporation in town, which kept its headquarters here into the 1990s. Highland Park became a city in 1918 so Detroit couldn't annex it, and the Ford plant's tax base along with it.

When the factories left, hard decades followed: the state ran the city's finances from 2001 to 2009, and in 2011 more than two-thirds of the residential streetlights were taken down because the city couldn't pay the electric bill. Since then local efforts like Soulardarity, which puts up solar streetlights, and Avalon Village have been rebuilding the community from the ground up.

5.7 miles northwest of downtown Detroit The three counties Imagery: EOxCloudless 2016, CC BY 4.0 · boundaries: U.S. Census Bureau

02 / Known for

What Highland Park is known for

On October 7, 1913, the world's first moving automobile assembly line started here, cutting Model T assembly from 728 minutes to 93.
On January 5, 1914, Ford announced the five-dollar day and the eight-hour shift here.
Chrysler's hometown: Walter Chrysler founded the company here in 1925, and it kept its headquarters here for decades.
Home of the Davison Freeway, the first depressed urban freeway in the United States.
Its old nickname is “The City of Trees”; it was thickly wooded until the 1970s.

03 / What’s on

What’s on in Highland Park

Nothing on our calendar in Highland Park right now. Try the neighbors:

Detroit 158 this week Hamtramck 6 this week Hazel Park Ferndale 17 this week All Metro Detroit events ↗

04 / Places

11 places on our site in Highland Park

Search all places ↗

Ruth Ellis Center95 Victor St., Highland Park, MI 48203

Vivent Health – Metro Detroit64 Victor St, Highland Park, MI 48203

Inuendo Nightclub744 E. Savannah St., Highland Park, MI 48203

The Vault 31316940 Hamilton Ave, Highland Park, MI 48203

Closed – archive entryFancy PantsWoodward Ave, Highland Park, MI 48203

Closed – archive entryHighland Park Chrysler Plant and Headquarters12568 Oakland Ave, Highland Park, MI 48203

Closed – archive entryHighland Park Community High School15900 Woodward Ave, Highland Park, MI 48203

Closed – archive entryHighland Park Ford Plant91 Manchester St, Highland Park, MI 48203

Closed – archive entryKrim Theatre16531 Woodward Ave, Highland Park, MI 48203

Closed – archive entryTuxedo Theatre11738 Hamilton Ave, Highland Park, MI 48203

Closed – archive entryUptown Theatre (Highland Park)16533 Woodward Ave, Highland Park, MI 48203

05 / What to do

If you’re in Highland Park

Ford Highland Park Plant
Sections of the 1910 plant still stand along Manchester Street just west of Woodward. You can't go inside, but you can see one of the key sites of auto history from the street; it's been a National Historic Landmark since 1978.
Official site ↗
Avalon Village
Shamayim “Mama Shu” Harris's community village on Avalon Street, where empty lots became a homework house for kids, gardens, a basketball court and a shipping-container shop. It welcomes volunteers and event visitors, so check the schedule first.
Official site ↗

06 / History

Highland Park through the years

1818
Judge Augustus B. Woodward bought the ridge along today's Woodward Avenue; the village of Woodwardville he platted in 1825 never took off.
1889
The settlement incorporated as the village of Highland Park.
1910
On January 1, Henry Ford's Highland Park Plant, designed by Albert Kahn, opened.
1918
Highland Park incorporated as a city to protect its tax base from Detroit's expansion.
1925
On June 6 Walter Chrysler founded the Chrysler Corporation out of the remains of the Maxwell Motor Company.
1982
On June 19 in Highland Park, two white men, a Chrysler supervisor and his stepson, beat Chinese American Vincent Chin, who died four days later. The lenient sentence became a turning point for Asian American civil rights.

07 / Born here

13 people in our lexicon were born here

All 13 in the lexicon ↗

08 / People

Famous names from here

Bill Haley The rock and roll pioneer behind “Rock Around the Clock” was born in Highland Park in 1925.
Tim Meadows The Saturday Night Live comedian was born in Highland Park in 1961.