171 people paid $100 each to buy a sagging Detroit auto plant: What they’ve accomplished

I recently spent a fascinating afternoon at the Piquette Plant Museum in Detroit’s reinvigorated Milwaukee Junction neighborhood. If you don’t know the name, Milwaukee Junction more or less brackets Woodward Avenue and Interstate 94, overlapping parts of Midtown and New Center.  

The neighborhood was a hive of invention and a magnet for investment that transformed Detroit and America.

“This was the original Silicon Valley,” said Piquette Plant President and COO Jill Woodward.

Like a lot of things in Detroit, the plant at 461 Piquette Ave. was a marvel in its day and a derelict wreck 25 years ago, when a group of volunteers began a painstaking renovation that continues today.  

Mee-meep!

Big historical trends are one thing, though. Squeezing a Model T-style bulb horn and making it sound like somebody just stepped on a Canada goose, that’s pure fun, and it’s just one of the things to see and do at Piquette.

History isn’t a class; it’s people. At the Piquette, it’s seeing photos of 14-year-old Edsel Ford in the plant and wondering whether he was excited to see the Model T take shape, or wished his dad would lighten up and let him play stickball with the guys.

It’s also the modern folks who have raised money and rebuilt the Piquette from a sagging, windowless hulk into a living piece of history with dozens of historic cars, including a Model T rigged with skis and tracks, one of the ways the U.S. Postal Service kept its promise: “Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet… .”

The complex holds more than 65 vehicles, including No. 220 out of the 15 million-plus Model T’s sold worldwide.

There’s also a Klaxon horn, patented in 1908, the same year Piquette built the first Model T.

Like the bulb horn, you can activate the Klaxon, invented by Miller Reese Hutchinson, who eventually became Thomas Edison’s chief engineer. Ironically, Hutchison also patented one of the first hearing aids. “Klaxon,” incidentally comes from an ancient Greek word meaning “to shriek.”

You’ll understand when you hear it.

Clara Bryant Ford’s recipe for date bars

This recipe was found in Clara’s handwriting. The recipe is from the book “Clara: Mrs. Henry Ford” by Ford R. Bryan.

Date sticks

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons (round) flour
• 1 level teaspoon baking powder
• 1 pound dates
• 1 cup walnuts

Spread as thin as possible in buttered tins and bake in moderate oven 20 to 30 min.

May be served as dessert smothered in whipped cream if spread thicker in tins and taken up with spoon after it is baked.

Century-old fire suppression system

My visit concluded with a delicious date bar — OK, two delicious date bars — made from Clara Ford’s personal recipe, but that’s not an everyday treat: One of the museum’s many volunteers brought a tray in that day.

One hundred seventy one people paid $100 each for the deed to save the building from demolition. Preserving this slice of history has been a shoestring operation from the start.

The museum still used a circuit box from 1926 until this March, when conversion of the neighboring former Studebaker plant to apartments forced the museum to install a modern, temporary system. A $1.8 million capital campaign is underway to replace that with a heavy-duty electrical system throughout the building, enabling luxuries like a modern fire suppression system and climate control.

Unrelated to Ford Motor Co., which sold the building decades ago, the museum is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Donations are tax deductible.

“We have major infrastructure needs to ensure the preservation of this U.S. National Historic Landmark,” Woodward said. “Our one and only elevator is 97 years old. We have no heat or AC in most of the building.”

“We need about $8 million to finish all the projects on our list,” Woodward said. “Think about installing a brand new HVAC system in your house, then consider we have 67,000 square feet. Then we have to design one that doesn’t interfere with the historic structure, and with appropriate museum climate controls.