History:

On July 30th, 1963, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Henry Ford, the Ford Motor Company deeded 15.3 acres of vacant land to the City of Dearborn as a building site for a new library. This was just about three months after the Ford Foundation decided to grant the City $3,000,000 for the construction of a memorial library to commemorate the centennial of Henry Ford's birth. This new library was to be aptly named the Henry Ford Centennial Library. After years of planning and hard work, and an additional grant of $500,000 from the Ford Foundation for equipment and supplies, the new library was formally dedicated on November 25th, 1969.