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History

The story of Fisher Body 21 began when brothers Fred and Charles Fisher founded the Fisher Body Company in 1908. Fisher soon became the industry standard and as orders came in from Detroit's auto manufacturers, Fisher expanded. For the first two decades Fisher's production facilities would be centered in Detroit in an area east of Woodward and south of Grand Boulevard. It would be in this area that the Fisher Body 21 plant rose in 1919.

Located at the corner of Hastings and Piquette Ave, just east of Woodward, Fisher Body 21 was just one of 40 buildings used by the company. By 1926 there was 3.7 million square feet of floorspace. Fisher Body 21, measuring 200 feet by 581 feet only accounted for 536,000 square feet of this total. The six story stucture was built with reinforced concrete in a manner developed by Albert Kahn.

Fisher Body 21 was built to house a body assembly plant. Between 1919 and 1925 it produced bodies for Buick and Cadillac. After Buick moved to Flint it continued to produce Cadillac bodies until becoming an engineering facility in 1929. The building continued as an engineering facility until 1956 when it again was pressed into production. This time around production centered around Cadillac limosine bodies. It continued in this service at least until 1974. The building's last use was in the mid-1990s as Carter Color.

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