Federal Screw Works (Detroit, Michigan)

USA / Michigan / River Rouge / Detroit, Michigan
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Federal Screw Works, was founded in Detroit in 1917 to produce fasteners. Their primary
focus was serving the automobile industry, in particular General Motors and Ford.

The original building was built in circa 1920 at 3401 Martin Street (near the Otis Street intersection). The building housed office, warehouse and machine shop functions in a steel frame and brick building, two stories at the front and one story with monitor at the back. The factory was expanded towards Bruckner Street and Southern Street / John Kronk and behind the Martin Street structures, in later years, with one addition on Southern/John Kronk added in 1950.

The Modern/Eclectic style five bay 1920 building gains most of its subtle expression from the use of patterned dark brick and limestone and cast stone detailing. Brick pilasters support an implied cornice of brick with cast stone blocks done in a bas-relief of various nuts and bolts and is finished with limestone coping along the parapet. To the northwest, running to Bruckner Street, is a multiple bay one-story addition with a monitor roof. The date of construction is not clear but may date to wartime expansion in the early 1940s.

The Federal Screw Works was involved in a divisive and violent strike in the spring of 1938 with national implications and which involved Walter Reuther and other key figures in the labor movement and local government.
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   42°19'27"N   83°7'26"W

Comments

  • The best place to work-ever! W. Tom ZurSchmiede, Jr., was a class act.
This article was last modified 12 years ago