Henry Ford spent decades collecting the artefacts of American invention, and the museum he founded in 1929 is unlike any other in the country. The 12-acre exhibit hall holds JFK's presidential limousine, the chair Lincoln was sitting in when shot at Ford's Theatre, Thomas Edison's last breath in a sealed glass tube, the Wright Brothers' bicycle shop, Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House, and the actual Rosa Parks bus. The aviation hall has a DC-3, a Ford Trimotor, and the prototype of the Boeing 727.
The adjoining Greenfield Village is a separate ticket and a separate experience: 80 acres of relocated historic buildings including Edison's Menlo Park laboratory, the Wright Brothers' Dayton home and cycle shop, and the Logan County, Illinois, courthouse where Lincoln practised law. Allow a full day for both. The site is in Dearborn, about 20 minutes from downtown.