Locations

The Lansing Auto Town Gallery is an audio special collection featuring oral histories from members and employees of the United Auto Workers Local 602, Fisher Body, and Diamond REO assembly plants in Lansing, MI. This online gallery offers the opportunity to listen to the ordinary, the extraordinary, the wit and candor of these men and women as they discuss experiences and perceptions about factory work, labor and management relations, corporations, the community, and motivations for union activism.

This local institution harkens back to an era when thousands of theatres like this dotted the American landscape. The Michigan was the last and largest theatre built in Jackson in the early 1930s for popular public entertainment of vaudeville and movies.

Founded in 1963, the Milan Dragway is a half-mile IHRA sanctioned straight drag strip and home to many heart-pounding racing events.

The Durant-Dort Carriage Company building along with the Durant-Dort Office Building, right across the street, serves as the historical epicenter of the General Motors empire. William C. Durant and J. Dallas Dort started with a sucessful carriage manufacturing company before moving into automotive. Currently, GM has undertaken a renovation project for "Factory One" with plans to create a company archive and research center.

William C. Durant was one of Michigan's most important industrialists and the founder of the General Motors Corporation. In 1919 Durant purchased this three-acre city block, once the estate of F. Mortimer Cowles, an Eaton Rapids carpenter who worked on the state capitol. Durant hired Kalamazoo landscaped contractor Charles Maxson to create an urban Park. (Maxson also landscaped the Durant Motor Company's 500,000-square-foot facility on Verlinden Avenue in Lansing.) In 1921 Durant donated the property to the city of Lansing as a park for north side residents. The park included flowerbeds and trees, serpentine concrete pathways, and a circular fountain basin in the center of the park. A parade marked the dedication on June 23, 1921

Birthplace of the Model T, first building built and owned by Ford Motor Company, and the only early automobile factory in Detroit open to the public. The Ford Piquette Plant is designated a State Historic Site and National Historic Landmark.In addition to regular hours, the plant is open for tours of ten or more visitors by appointment.

Automobile and truck manufacturing in Lansing did not stop with the early small companies and the giants of Oldsmobile and REO. In addition to all the General Motors models that have been made in the city through the years there was also the major concerns of Duplex Tuck and Durant Motor Car Co. After William Durant's second loss of control of General Motors he came back again in 1920 with the Durant Motor Co. The Lansing factory was built on VerLinden Ave (Edward VerLinden was first Manager, former of Oldsmobile) and contributed to the city's swelling auto worker population of over 13,000.

The Great Depression swallowed Durant's company as well as so many others, and the company was in receivership by 1932. In 1936 Fisher Body bought the factory and has been manufacturing in this spot since, though there were other name changes under General Motors. It became Buick Oldsmobile Cadillac Body Assembly in the 1980's, and then later renamed again, as Lansing Car Assembly. The last automobile assembly rolled off the line here in 2004, and the factory was demolished starting in 2007.

The only museum in Michigan dedicated to the story of organized labor, this facility features a number of great exhibits commemorating the persaverance of the American workforce.

The Diego Rivera murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts is a powerful interpretation of the area's auto and labor history completed using 27 fresco panels between 1932-1933. In 2014, the murals were given National Landmark status. Take in the famed work along with other incredible displays at the DIA during regular museum hours.

The iconic Motown Historical Museum - also known as Hitsville, U.S.A. - preserves a truly golden era in music and stands as one of Detroit's greatest treasures. Visit the original recording home of superstars such as The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and more.