Greenfield Village Buildings

As America was taking its first steps towards industrialization, the Hanks family of Mansfield, Connecticut, made early attempts to mechanize the production of silk thread. Rodney Hanks and his nephew Horatio Hanks built this mill in 1810. It was the first silk mill in America, producing some of the first silk with machines that were powered by a waterwheel.

The Pottery Shop was designed in 1939 by Edward L. Cutler, an architect who helped Henry Ford create his historic village. Designed as a reproduction rice mill to house 19th-century threshing machinery from a South Carolina plantation, the building was repurposed as the Pottery Shop in 1984. Today, visitors view demonstrations of hand-made pottery including salt-glaze and slip wares.

Small sawmills played a fundamental role in rural communities in nineteenth century America, processing locally-logged wood to provide sawn lumber for construction in the immediate area. While many such mills were water powered, this was steam-powered from the outset. It was simple but refined -- a modest, self-sufficient industrial operation (water and fuel was available onsite), comfortably wedded to its rural location.

Gristmills -- usually among the earliest businesses established in a community -- ground grain harvested by local farmers. This mill, originally located in Monroe, Michigan, was set up to grind both corn and wheat. It incorporates a sophisticated conveyor system, developed by Oliver Evans in the late 1700s, that moves grain through the building to undergo a variety of processes.

John Gunsolly operated this water-powered carding mill as well as a saw and cider mill on the Middle Rouge River near Plymouth, Michigan, beginning in the 1850s. Area farmers brought their wool to this mill to have it carded (combed) so it could be spun into thread.

The Printing Office was built in Greenfield Village in 1933. For decades, the building served as a utilitarian print shop for Greenfield Village. At one time, the building housed a recreated 19th-century small town newspaper print shop and tinsmithing studio. Now, only the print shop remains.

Sawmills were among the first mills in new settlements, supplying lumber for people's homes and barns. Henry Ford had this mill built in Greenfield Village to house early up-and-down sawmill machinery. One of the large beams holding up the building came from a water-powered sawmill that George Spofford operated in Georgetown, Massachusetts, back in the 1600s.

The Henry Ford's glass collection is one of the most comprehensive in the United States, numbering approximately 10,000 pieces. The gallery traces the history of American glass from the 18th century through the present, including works by important artists like Louis Comfort Tiffany and masters of the Studio Glass movement. Built as a machine shop in 1888 in Lapeer, Michigan, this building was moved to Greenfield Village in 1931.

The Glass Shop was constructed in 1930 to demonstrate the art of glass making as practiced in nineteenth century America. It was modeled after the Boston and Sandwich Glass House, located in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In 2005, the shop was rebuilt, enlarged and updated with modern equipment. Today, our artisans create up to 10,000 pieces of historic and contemporary Studio Glass annually.

The Greenfield Village Weaving Shop demonstrates the evolution of textile production from the colonial home and craft shop, through the Industrial Revolution to commercial factory. Housed in a converted 1840s Georgia cotton mill, the Weaving Shop contains a number of working looms, including one of the few operating mechanical Jacquard looms in North America.

This building essentially provides support for a system of shafts and pulleys that distribute mechanical energy to the rows of metal working machine tools arranged along the building's length. The machinists who worked in shops like this could tackle a wide range of jobs. America's nineteenth century machine shops were a training ground for many technological innovators.

This well-equipped laboratory enabled Edison to carry on his investigations even as he seemed to seek a break from business and other matters. The first building to be completed in Greenfield Village, it had a second experimental life, offering seclusion to a select group of Ford Motor Company engineers tasked with developing the Ford V-8 engine in the early 1930s.

The Menlo Park complex was an all-male environment; the closest workaday involvement of women -- not forgetting that Edison and several of his personnel were married -- was at the Sarah Jordan boardinghouse. Offering room and board for unmarried employees at the complex, it was operated by Sarah Jordan, a distant relative of Edison's. The house also played host to the experimental lighting system installed throughout Menlo Park in December 1879.

Edison's invention of the carbon telephone transmitter in 1877 is what made the telephone commercially practical. This small wooden shed housed a battery of kerosene lamps, kept lit and set to produce carbon soot. The soot was collected and compressed into carbon tablets for telephone transmitters. Edison also used the carbon produced in this shed for various other experiments.

Edison employed skilled woodworkers to make models, miscellaneous components, and patterns for making metal castings -- a great example of the importance of traditional craft to Edison's experimental investigations. The carpentry shop also housed machinery for making gas, used in the laboratory's Bunsen burners and -- prior to his success with electric lighting -- for lighting the complex.

When Edison moved to Menlo Park, New Jersey, in spring of 1876 the laboratory building contained his entire operation -- a handful of collaborators, office, library, and machine shop as well as laboratory. As the scale of Edison's investigations grew so did the complex, but this building -- dedicated to experimental activities -- was always understood to be the heart of the enterprise.

The presence of a machine shop (and of foreman / head machinist John Kruesi) was fundamental to the success of Menlo Park. This well-equipped facility -- built to replace the small machine shop originally installed in the laboratory -- enabled Edison and his associates to not only rapidly prototype iterations of experimental devices but also facilitate their eventual, profitable manufacture.

This building was built in late 1878 as Edison's work on electric lighting expanded. The first floor provided office space for accounting, bookkeeping, and patent applications; upstairs was a superbly stocked technical library. The building also played another key role: as a reception area for journalists and other visitors it provided a disarming first impression of Edison's success and ambition.

Originally built as a photographic studio and drafting room, the glassblowing shop was fundamental to Edison's enterprise. Edison's incandescent lighting experiments ensured that the laboratory had a voracious appetite for glass -- not only for bulbs but also for associated apparatus such as vacuum pumps. Ludwig Boehm, the laboratory's first master glassblower, worked here -- and lodged in the attic space.

In 1930 Henry Ford commissioned this larger-than-life statue of his friend and hero, Thomas Edison. Sculptor James Earle Fraser (1876-1953), renowned for his public statues of prominent individuals, made preparatory sketches from sittings given by Edison just before his death in 1931. Fraser did not complete the statue until 1949 - it has since had several homes at The Henry Ford, and is now prominently located in the heart of the Village.

Constructed in Greenfield Village, this building was an experimental soybean research laboratory during the 1930s. Henry Ford was looking for ways that farmers could use crops for industrial purposes, especially in the manufacture of car parts. Special equipment was designed here to process soybeans into oil and meal. Today, this building houses agricultural implements from the museum's collections.

Benjamin and Catherine Firestone raised their three children in this farmhouse, including tire maker Harvey Firestone. Originally located near Columbiana, Ohio, the 1828 house was updated in 1882 to appear more stylish and up-to-date. The traditional Pennsylvania German layout of the Firestone's farmhouse was transformed, with a central foyer, separate dining room and kitchen, a sitting room, closets, wallpaper, and fancy new furniture.

The Firestone barn is a Pennsylvania-German bank barn, an American barn type with Swiss origins. They are called bank barns because the barn is built into a bank, allowing wagons to be driven into the upper floor. Bank barns combined multiple farm functions under a single roof. Livestock were kept in the lower floor, crops on the upper floor.

This is a replica of the Firestone's pump house in Ohio. This small structure sheltered the hand pump mechanism and provided cool water to help preserve perishable food items, such as butter.

This is a replica of the Firestones' chicken house in Ohio. Chickens spend their days in the farmyard, foraging for seeds and bugs for food. They spend their nights on their roosts in the chicken house, which provides warmth, protection from predators, and keeps the eggs in one place, making them easier to gather.

The cider mill building was built at Greenfield Village in 1942 to house the cider-making equipment from Martinsville, Michigan. It is built on a bank, so the apples were brought into the building on the second floor, then fed by gravity to the first floor. The building's design is not based on any specific building.

William Ford built this barn near present-day Dearborn, Michigan, in 1863 -- the same year his son Henry was born. Ford mainly used it to store grain and hay, though livestock and tools were occasionally housed in the structure. The barn was moved to The Henry Ford in 1934. Today it's used by Greenfield Village's horses.

Wagon makers Robert and William Richart offered many services out of this shop, built in Macon, Michigan, in 1847. In addition to building, painting and repairing wagons, the Richarts fixed tools, sharpened saws and even mended household furniture. The Richarts remained in business for over 50 years. The shop building was moved to Greenfield Village in 1941.

An iconic sight in New England communities, the town hall was the place where local citizens would come together to participate in town meetings. These buildings also became gathering places for political elections, theatrical performances, and social events. Built in Greenfield Village in 1929, this town hall was patterned after New England town halls of the early 1800s.

James R. Jones was one of nine different proprietors who operated a general merchandise store in this building between 1857 and 1927. From 1882 to 1888, Jones sold products like coffee, sugar, fabric, and shoes. He also boasted the first telephone in town. General stores were organized shopping spaces. Long shelves with groupings of similar products lined each side.

This stagecoach tavern was built in 1831 in Clinton, Michigan, 50 miles west of Detroit. Taverns dotted the American countryside during the first half of the 1800s, a period of massive migration, new settlement, and rapid change in a young America. From 1849-1854, farmer Calvin Wood operated this tavern, offering food, drink, and accommodations to travelers who passed through his village.

This shed, originally built in Newton, New Hampshire, around 1850, was located near the local cemetery. Horse-drawn hearses, usually owned by the local community, were used to carry the coffin during funeral processions through town to the cemetery.

Churches were a center of community life in the 1700s, a place where townspeople came together to attend services and socialize. The Martha-Mary Chapel, with its architecture inspired by New England's colonial-era churches, was built in Greenfield Village in 1929. This chapel was named after Henry Ford's mother, Mary Litogot Ford, and his mother-in-law, Martha Bench Bryant.

Sir John Bennett's clock, watch and jewelry store in London, England, originally stood five stories. Mr. Ford was especially attracted to the Gog and Magog figures, who strike the clock. Henry Ford, a watch enthusiast, purchased the building for his historical village in 1928. Village architect Edward Cutler reassembled the structure in a two-story scale, making it compatible with other buildings in the Village.

Specialized retail stores like this one served the needs of city dwellers in the late 19th century. During the 1880s, a series of shops selling fancy goods, groceries, dry goods, and flour and feed occupied the building. In the mid-1890s, widow Elizabeth Cohen operated a millinery shop here, offering customers fashionable headwear while supporting her young family. Like other shopkeepers, Mrs. Cohen lived above her store.

Wilbur and Orville Wright operated their bicycle business in this building from 1897 to 1908 in Dayton, Ohio. The brothers sold and repaired bikes, and they even produced models under their own brands. It was also in this shop that the Wright brothers built their earliest flying machines, including the 1903 Flyer that became the first successful heavier-than-air, powered, controlled aircraft.

Though the Wright family moved around, brothers Wilbur and Orville always thought of this house, originally located at 7 Hawthorn Street in Dayton, Ohio, as home. Orville was born here in 1871, and Wilbur died here in 1912. It was also here that the brothers began their serious studies in aviation -- work that led to their successful 1903 Wright Flyer.

Orville and Wilbur Wright were enthusiastic photographers who took many shots of their family and friends. They also took numerous photos of their gliders and airplanes, and those images remain vital records of the airplane's invention. The brothers developed their glass plate negatives in a darkroom they built in the shed behind the family home.

Enterprising Henry J. Heinz began his successful business by bottling horseradish in the basement of his parents' home in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania. From this house, he sold a growing variety of pickles and relishes to neighbors before moving his operation to Pittsburgh. This house currently features an exhibit on the H.J. Heinz Company's innovative business practices and marketing techniques.

Colorful carousels were at the height of their popularity during the early 1900s and could be found all across America in amusement parks, city parks, and seaside resorts. Built in 1913, this "menagerie" carousel's hand-carved animals include storks, goats, zebras, dogs, and even a frog. Although its original location is uncertain, this carousel operated in Spokane, Washington, from 1923 to 1961.

The Phoenixville Post Office, built around 1825 in northeastern Connecticut, was always more than a post office. Under Lorenzo Bullard, who probably built the structure, it was a grocer's and apothecary shop. By 1850 it was the post office and community gathering place for this rural town. It sold stamps and stationery--and was the place to go to talk about local happenings.

Henry Ford attended this one-room schoolhouse from age seven to ten. Because of Ford's fondness for his teacher John Chapman, he not only followed Chapman to Miller School but also brought Chapman's house to Greenfield Village. This school, originally built in 1861 in Dearborn Township, was the first classroom of the Greenfield Village school system Henry Ford started in 1929.

Alonson Howard practiced medicine in rural Tekonsha, Michigan, starting around the time of the Civil War. He was an "eclectic" physician, combining Western medicine and surgery with the herbal and homeopathic methods popular in the 19th century. This building was the waiting room, office and laboratory for Doc Howard and his patients. He also made herbal medicines here.

Tintypes were a popular type of mid-1800s "wet-plate" photography. This studio was built in 1929 in Greenfield Village and a tintypist and Ford Motor Company employee, Charles Tremear, was hired to create tintypes for Greenfield Village visitors. In this studio, in addition to Village visitors, Tremear made portraits of many celebrities, including Thomas Edison, Joe Louis and Walt Disney.

Englebert Grimm sold and repaired watches, clocks and jewelry in this building. The business was located on Michigan Avenue in Detroit, from 1886 until 1931. Shops like Grimm's prospered in cities, selling mass-produced goods of the newly industrializing society. Grimm and his family lived above the store in comfortable but relatively modest quarters.

The Henry Ford's Owl Night Lunch wagon is thought to be the last remaining horse-drawn lunch wagon in America. It served food to nighttime workers in downtown Detroit, and attracted such diverse clientele as reporters, politicians, policemen, factory workers, and supposedly even underworld characters! Among its customers was Henry Ford, a young engineer working at Edison Illuminating Company during the 1890s.

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.

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.

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.

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.