Henry Ford's little mill on the River Raisin in Dundee

Alfred Wilkerson built the three-story frame mill on the River Raisin in 1848-49. It began as a grist mill, using the river and a nearby dam to turn grain for local farmers. The wood frame matters: the limestone section people see beside it came later.

Henry Ford began rebuilding the mill in 1935. He stripped it to the original timber frame, rebuilt it along the old lines, and added a limestone powerhouse with turbines and generators. The Dundee plant became part of Ford’s “Village Industries,” a network of small hydro-powered factories where local people could combine factory work with farm life. The plant made welding tips for Ford factories and later produced wartime parts.

Ford’s Dundee plant operated from 1936 until 1954. Wolverine Manufacturing then used the building to make paper gasket material. In 1970, Wolverine sold the landmark to the Village of Dundee for one dollar. It stood unused until 1981, when local volunteers began turning it into a museum.

Today the Old Mill Museum preserves both halves of the building’s story: a nineteenth-century grist mill and a twentieth-century Ford factory powered by the River Raisin.