A visit to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn MI

Last month, on my way to Buffalo for the Roadfood Buffalo/Rochester bus tour, I made a short detour off of my route across northern Ohio ( US 20 ) up to Dearborn Michigan to visit the Henry Ford Museum, something I've wanted to do for a number of years. The Ford, as it is known, houses an incredible collection of artifacts relating to American history, primarily the first half of the twentieth century.

Admission to the Ford is $15 for adults plus $5 for parking. Here's the entrance hall...

The first exhibit that I came across is also one of my favorites; one of the first Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles, built in 1952. It's quite a bit smaller the the more recent models.

What fun! They have a little store in the DTW airport and I got wiener whistles for my nephews one year, have always been there on business and never enough time to do anything fun, on my list of "get-to" places one of these days!

Back in the early 1970s we went on a family trip to Dearborn and the Museum.  I can't remember how many days it lasted, where we stayed, what we saw, or what we ate but I remember being very impressed.  I suspect the place has changed a bit since then!

Brad

We went to the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village a few times as our boys were growing up.  It was a wonderful experience, and we'd like to go back.  My favorite memory was a trip we took with 2 boys ages 6 & 9.  We ate dinner at the Dearborn Inn, and these 2, not used to a white tablecloth restaurant, behaved perfectly and used impeccable table manners.  Must have been the atmosphere.  We took them to other restaurants which were similar later on, but I don't recall the meals as being as wonderful (on the boys' part) as this particular experience was.

This Caterpillar tractor is a 1929 model.

I love this great "streamlined" toy train from the 1930s.

The King!

When I briefly lived a few miles above the Museum (Pontiac) in 1976, I drove down to visit this museum.  It's a great place, and I didn't see everything there.  I had a chance in July to visit it again, but time considerations made me pass it by.  So I'm glad you went there for me, Bob.  I know I'll enjoy all the pictures you took.

Great photos, nocarolina. We have hundreds of shots from visits to the museum, but none the quality of yours'.

This is the entrance to the Dymaxion House exhibit. It's an all-metal ( steel and aluminum ) prefabricated home that was developed by inventor/architect Buckminster Fuller and built by Beech Aircraft Co. in 1946. It was supposed to be an answer to the post-war housing shortage, but a number of problems kept it from going into production; this is the only one ever built.

Could you imagine living in something like this? Not me!

On display is a full-scale replica of Wilbur and Orville Wright's Wright Flyer 1. The original can be seen at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.

As good as the Ford Museum is, and I think it is Great, the Greenfield Village that Henry Ford assembled is amazing. Seeing the buildings, Not Replica's, but the actual buildings of places like the Wright's bicycle shop relocated from Dayton and Edisons Lab from N J and a whole mess of other historically significant buildings from around the country really make those inventors "come alive" !

I first visited the place as a kid in 1958. In addition to the Museum and the Village, part of the several day visit included a tour of the River Rogue Ford Assembly Plant. At that time the facility did a 'soup to nuts' car creation at the one factory...going from raw iron ore to steel production to fabricating and assembly-line car production. I can't imagine a modern factory tour that included a walk across suspended catwalks in the steel-furnace area with heat and sparks  all around the 'visitors'...but they did it at that time !

For me the high-point of the Ford Museum visit were the Locomotives on display. I think I played 'engineer' for hours on those giants !  More recently seeing the Lincoln 'Presidential Limo' that JFK was riding in in Dallas brought back some somber memories of where I was when that terrible moment occurred.

The whole complex is a wonderful place to become reacquainted with our American Heritage. If you haven't visited it, I urge you to give it a couple of days ...You will never forget the experience.

Al, if time had allowed, I would have visited Greenfield Village as well as the museum. Unfortunately, I arrived in Dearborn about three hours before the museum closed ( bad planning on my part ), so that ruled out a visit to the Village. However, the next time that I'm there ( and there will be a next time ), I'll make a point of arriving early enough to see everything.

Here's a Birney-style electric streetcar that ran in Fort Collins CO many decades ago. Birneys were small, four-wheel streetcars that were designed for use on lightly patronized lines. The car was developed by Charles O. Birney, and the first of several thousand of this type was built in 1915.  

This horse-drawn streetcar was built in 1881. Electrically-powered trolley cars were still about a decade away.

nocarolina, Great pics and report. 

I was at The Betty Ford once.  No pics though.  They said the camera was a sharp object.

Wow, I worked at the museum thirty years ago, designing exhibits - though I'll bet nothing I did is still there. I've been wanting to get back for a while, not least to see the Dymaxion House. I suppose one problem with production was not many people wanted to live in something that looked like a grain silo, but I like it.

Once I went out to lunch with some coworkers to an Italian bakery near the River Rouge plant - they made hot pepperoni and mozzarella hard roll sandwiches I still crave. If someone can point that place out, I'm definitely going back!