Famous people's places / Detroit – Jefferson-Chalmers
Hudson Motor Car Company Jefferson Avenue Plant
Closed – archive entry · 1954
The original Detroit factory of the Hudson Motor Car Company, built by Albert Kahn in 1910 and run for decades by Roy D. Chapin, torn down in the late 1950s after Hudson's merger into American Motors.
01 / The story of this place
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Hudson Motor Car Company hired architect Albert Kahn to design a new factory at Jefferson and Conner avenues on Detroit's east side, and production began there in 1910. Roy D. Chapin, one of Hudson's founders, ran the company from these grounds through 1936, building Hudson into one of the era's major independent automakers, known for models like the Essex, the Terraplane, and later the streamlined "Step-Down" Hudsons. Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator in 1954 to form American Motors Corporation, and the new company shifted production to Wisconsin, ending the plant's run as a working factory. Cadillac briefly used part of the complex as a metal-stamping plant starting in 1956, but the old Hudson buildings proved so solidly built that demolition crews struggled with them; the site was finally cleared by 1959 and 1960. Chrysler's Jefferson North Assembly Plant now occupies the area, still building vehicles on ground where Hudsons once rolled off the line.
- Built in 1910 to a design by architect Albert Kahn
- Roy D. Chapin ran Hudson from here through 1936
- Hudson merged into American Motors in 1954, ending production here
- Demolished by 1959–1960; the area is now part of the Jefferson North Assembly Plant
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 1
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Roy D. Chapin 1880–1936 · co-founder and president of Hudson Motor Car Company, U.S. Secretary of Commerce
Worked here
Hudson's main factory on a 22-acre site in Detroit's Fairview area; production ended after the 1954 merger into American Motors.
Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
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03 / Events
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