Resurrecting the Detroit Central Farmers Market

Abstract

This article discusses the 162-years history of the only known nineteenth-century timber-frame farmers’ market in existence today. Designed by an architect, this immense building required great skill from the tradespeople who built it from old-growth Michigan white pine timbers. No machinery was used in planing the surfaces or cutting the mortise-and-tenon joinery that holds the structure together. It is without question one of the most highly finished and decorated timber frames known to exist today. Its reconstruction in Greenfield Village at the Henry Ford Museum will guarantee its continuing existence for generations to come.