Ford River Rouge complex

The Ford River Rouge complex (commonly known as the Rouge complex, River Rouge, or The Rouge) is a Ford Motor Company automobile factory complex located in Dearborn, Michigan, along the River Rouge, upstream from its confluence with the Detroit River at Zug Island. Completed in 1928, it was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1978.

Henry Ford purchased the future site of the Rouge in 1915, with plans to build a bird sanctuary. Plans shifted to manufacturing following a federal request to the Ford Motor Company to produce warships. 'Building B', the first building on the property, was built to fulfill the request.

The Rouge complex measures 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide by 1 mile (1.6 km) long, including 93 buildings with nearly 16 million square feet (1.5 km²) of factory floor space. With its own docks in the dredged Rouge River, 100 miles (160 km) of interior railroad track, its own electricity plant, and integrated steel mill, the titanic Rouge was able to turn raw materials into running vehicles within this single complex, a prime example of vertical-integration production.

Some of the Rouge's buildings were designed by architect Albert Kahn, such as its glass plant in 1925, which replaced Ford's glass production site in Highland Park, Pittsburgh. It measures 760 feet long and 240 feet wide, and its walls features large glass panels. Khan also designed the tire plant. Completed January 30, 1938, it measures 802 feet in length and 240 feet in width and features a butterfly roof and, similarly to the glass plant, has large glass panels in its walls.

In the second quarter of 1932, through Edsel Ford's support, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera was invited to study the facilities at the Rouge. The studies informed his set of murals known as the Detroit Industry Murals, which is exhibited in the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Charlie Chaplin studied the Rouge for his 1936 film, Modern Times.

The Ford Company provides free tours of the facility via bus. They ran from 1924 to 1980, at their peak hosting approximately a million visitors per year. They resumed in 2004, in cooperation with The Henry Ford Museum, with multimedia presentations, as well as a viewing of the assembly floor. In 2017, the Rouge had 148,000 visitors.

In September 2020, Ford announced the construction of the Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center, costing $700,000,000 to build, for production of the Ford F-150 Lightning, an electric vehicle. On May 18, 2021, then-president Joe Biden toured the plant and drove an F-150 Lightning before it entered the market. He endorsed electric vehicles during a speech at the plant.