Highland Park’s story is one found often in Michigan history, with a plot line that first reveals the area as a small farming community six miles from Detroit, located on an attractive ridge. In 1818, prominent Detroit judge Augustus B. Woodward bought the ridge, and he platted the village of Woodwardville in 1825. That venture failed, as did several others until 1889, when the settlement was finally incorporated as a 2.9-square-mile village within Greenfield Township and Hamtramck Township under the name of Highland Park. In 1909 Henry Ford selected it as a site for his new factory, which became the Highland Park Ford Plant. After Ford introduced the assembly line to the world just four years later, the character of the community changed. From 1908 to 1927 approximately 15 million Model Ts were produced in the Ford Plant at 91 Manchester, just off scenic Woodward Avenue. The population also exploded during this period, growing from 4,120 to 46,599 in just one decade. Highland Park was a household word on the strength of the Ford facility.

Then, in the late 1920s, Ford outgrew the Highland Park facility and moved its operations to a new, expansive production center on the Rouge River. But as Ford left, Chrysler entered, continuing high employment in Highland Park as it located its world headquarters at Oakland and Davidson. Once more, however, the hammer dropped on Highland Park. In 1987, Chrysler announced that it was leaving for new facilities in Auburn Hills, Michigan. While Chrysler left behind a $5 million seed investment in the form of HP Devco, Inc., an economic development organization, it was clear that Highland Park was in for some very tough times. The problems were huge, just as they were with Detroit, the city that now surrounded Highland Park. With a loss of 70 percent of its tax revenues, services fell off, workers fled elsewhere, whites moved to the suburbs, houses were boarded up, and businesses disappeared. As in Detroit, the industrial properties left behind were polluted from decades of ignorance and misuse. Also, the same as in Detroit, crime rose at alarming rates.

But the people of Highland Park fought back. Over the years, thanks to Chrysler and other economic development efforts, the city has generated over $200 million in new investment. Budco, Inc – a company that specializes in customer service – has located its world headquarters in Highland Park, creating over 5,000 new jobs. A unit of Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. opened a new sales distribution center on 21 acres of city real estate. Highland Park’s Weed and Seed program filled 94 dumpsters while cleaning up the Auburndale Street area, with more cleanups to come. Highland Park also offers remarkable real estate opportunities – residential properties in need of old-fashioned sweat equity. Through the Cities of Promise Initiative, the Highland Park Partnership Team is currently working on the strategic removal of dilapidated properties, in an effort to protect property values and the safety of the citizenry. It has also identified the Ford Administration Building and the McGregor Library as historical signature projects for rehabilitation and reuse. In addition, the Cities of Promise Initiative has enabled the local partnership team to fast-track several Highland Park road resurfacing and beautification projects. And in the area of neighborhood development, the Cities of Promise initiative is helping to stabilize neighborhoods by utilizing Wayne County and Michigan State Housing Development Authority HOME funds for homeowner rehabilitation programs. “I think we’ve turned the corner,” says a longtime resident whose mother moved to Highland Park in 1952. If history has taught anything, it’s that the Highland Park of the future should be dynamic, diverse, and ever changing – to ensure that the volatile growth and bust of the Highland Park of the past is not repeated.