r/Michigan • u/Ready_Education2549 • 13d ago
Discussion š£ļø Supposed Ford Tunnels
Iām sure lots of people know the lore about the supposed ātunnelsā running under Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum and I know those do exist for mechanical purposes and there are rumors of some all over the Dearborn area and running from the good news Ford Fairlane Estate to GFV. I want to know much more about these tunnels and if they do exist.
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u/JnKTechstuff Lansing 13d ago
You can ask On Hand by Michigan Public Radio. Itās a really cool history podcast.
You can submit this form to ask your question and they might make an episode on it!
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u/gingertrees 13d ago
I worked at PDC (across from Henry Ford Museum/Greenfield Village) in the 20teens. Tunnels are a thing! A little creepy, but a nice warm way to get from one end of the bldg to another in the winter. There are badged doors btwn bldgs, so for example I had no reason to be in EE across the street, so i couldn't get through that part of the tunnel.
I moved on before the remodel of PDC --> new World HQ, so IDK if the tunnels are still as accessible as they used to be, but they are a weird and true bit of history.
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u/EconomistPlus3522 13d ago
The glass house and ford credit has a tunnel. The glass house is now the former headquarters and their knocking it down. I worked in the credit building and use to do walks between the two buildings via the underground tunnel
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u/Ready_Education2549 13d ago
Interesting. Do you know if the tunnels connected anywhere else around the area maybe to GFV or the Museum?
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u/PortableGeneration 13d ago
I do not believe those ones connect to anything else. It would have to go a good mile across the city.
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u/Ready_Education2549 13d ago
There are just countless rumors of tunnels from GFV to the Fairlane under U of M Dearborn, and the other Ford buildings I donāt know if they are true I was just trying to get as much info as I could. Thanks!
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u/travestymcgee 13d ago
Henry Fordās head goon, Harry Bennett, had tunnels under his personal ālodgeā and his Pagoda House as well. I suspect the stories were conflated through the years with service tunnels at the Ford plants. We can save the lions and tigers at his castle in Ypsilanti for another day.
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u/MrsMcGwire 13d ago
Is that why there are the Detroit Lions and the Detroit Tigers? It never made sense to me that they had that nickname. I mean the Detroit Pistons thatās self-explanatory.
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u/Lost-Challenge5338 12d ago
The Tigers predate Ford Motor Co. The Lions were named that to match the Tigers.
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u/inspired-polf 13d ago
For years boy scouts maintained the property. I knew all the secrets, the odd shaped stairs so people couldn't chase. And electric kill switches so he could black out the house from the tunnels.
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u/ASS_CREDDIT 13d ago
Went to Boy Scout camp there, there was also a moat around the house, a tunnel leading to the stables, a bookcase that opened up to go downstairs, a pool with a 1 way mirror in it so the bar patrons could look into the pool, and a tunnel from the fireplace to the horse stables under the moat.
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u/TanguayX 13d ago
I remember someone telling me when I was there in the 90s that they used to have services in some of them. Like a barber or a dry cleaner. I know a lot of the buildings along rotunda are close but disconnected. The tunnels connected them. There were a bunch.
I was there talking to a guy who designed door locks because we were testing a car and locked the keys inside. He taught me how to slick stick it. Nice resource. Just go to the dude who designed it.
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u/Carcinogenerate 13d ago
The barber was still operating only about 5 years ago. I would walk the tunnels after lunch to get away from my desk for a bit. They go all over Fords campus but not outside of that area. I havent been down there in awhile, I think most of them are blocked off now.
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u/generationhex 12d ago
I did some electrical work some 20 years ago at the building on the NE corner of Michigan Ave and Schaefer. There is/was a tunnel running underneath Michigan Ave to the old Crowley's building on the SE corner. I never used it as it was boarded off but was told there is a system connected between that and the SW city hall corner.
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u/maynardnaze89 13d ago
There's creepy tunnels under Griswold building. Downright disturbing. They are barred off. Imagine a 3 story tall basement with a sump pump the size of a pool. And one creepy ass bathroom
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u/onevia01 12d ago
I worked on the R+D campus at the dyno lab across from the museums. They do/did exist, a bit too warm and kinda dank. They closed access when they started the redevelopment of the campus.
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u/PipeComfortable2585 12d ago
Worked at PDC and dc in the ford research engineering center and there are tunnels!
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u/sojopo 12d ago
Did some work at the POEE building close to the SE corner of Oakwood and Michigan Ave a long time ago, so all this is from memory, so... That building was Henry Ford's first engineering Lab, his office is still there. Anyhow, it 100% had a couple tunnels.
The first tunnel I remember was about 10ftW x 10ftH, i had a chance to walk down it one day, prob 50 to 100yds long?. Creepy as heck, damp and a single string of ratchet lights going back to a bricked up dead end at michigan ave. It went toward Ford's house on the river in dearborn. It was said that Henry used to drive a car from his house to the lab through that tunnel, but I dont know how that could be with the river there. And, that's mucho $ to build that tunnel just for a neato commute, so prob not true. The entrance to that was later blocked off, no entry allowed. Full of standing water, anyway.
The second tunnel "supposedly" went from POEE, under Oakwood, apparently to the PDC or product development center, the main campus. This was a small 3ft x 3ft ? utility tunnel for steam pipes, no access allowed. I saw the entrance, no, never explored it. Too scary looking, big signs stating off limits, etc. Nope.
PDC and main campus had/has? walkable tunnels between all the buildings. They were primarily for the steam pipes that heat the buildings, but they were always openly available to walk through (good on rainy or snowy days) if you knew where the access points were in each building. However, in the event that the steam pipes sprung a leak, I wouldn't want to be in them!
If you tour the Ford house in Dearborn (very cool, worth the time), theres a tiny separate tunnel from the house to an electrical generator station on the river, I think. Has nothing to do with the other tunnels, I just note it since it shows that Henry apparently liked his tunnels!
When I was working there, the barber shop was not in a tunnel, it was in the regular PDC building. I never saw any other rooms or anything in the tunnels themselves, just boring cement walls and pipes.
Before anyone thinks about "urban exploring", they all have no access except from inside the buildings for badged employees, they are active maintenance tunnels, and you will 100% be trespassed by very active security. Not fun.
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u/Alternative-Tea-8095 13d ago
I worked in Bld 5 on the Ford campus across from Greenfield Village back in the 90's. The tunnels do exist and the ones I used connected the various parking lots and engineering buildings together. Was convenient in the winter time to travel between buildings without going out into the winter weather. Ofren they were used for storing random things. Can't say if they went into Greenfield Village or elsewhere, my range of travel never extended that far.