The 1801-1803 Atwater complex is also known as the Globe Trading Company Building, and in 2015 was opened by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources as the Outdoor Adventure Center.

[3] The earliest structure, an 1892 machine shop, is also significant as an early example of an industrial building entirely supported by its steel frame,[3] but using traditional brick and standard windows to infill the curtain walls.

[1] In 2012, the Department of Natural Resources received funding for historic redevelopment of the complex, along the city's east riverfront promenade.

In the 1840s, Captain Stephen R. Kirby began a shipbuilding firm in Cleveland, Ohio, and by 1852 had moved to Saginaw, Michigan.

[6] (Frank Kirby went on to a successful shipbuilding career, which included the design of two National Historic Landmarks: the Columbia and the Ste.

[6] In 1852, Campbell, Wolverton and Company opened a ship repair yard on the Detroit River at the foot of Orleans Street.

[7] Also in the late 1870s, railroad and shipping magnate James McMillan became interested in shipbuilding, purchasing shares in Detroit Dry Dock.

[9] The firm slowly acquired surrounding lots, and by 1880 owned nearly the entire city block back to Guoin Street.

[10] (The city vacated Dequindre in the vicinity of the Dry Dock Engine Works in 1917,[11] and Guoin some time later; neither street currently exists in the area.)

[12] However, the firm also produced stationary and portable steam engines, as well as mining equipment, mill gearing, and brass and iron casting.

[9] In 1883, Dry Dock Engine Works bought the nearby boiler shop of Desotell & Hudson, expanding their product line.

[10] Although unimportant at the time, the Dry Dock Engine Works is significant as an early employer of Henry Ford.

[14] In 1892, James McMillan took over the presidency of Dry Dock Engine Works, and the two firms were controlled by the same person.

Although even after 1892 the two firms were technically separate, they essentially operated as a single business unit, with the same principals in charge of both.

[13] A few years later, in 1902, the Detroit Shipbuilding Company built two more still-surviving structures, the foundry and the industrial loft building.

Sometime in the 1910s, three more structures were built, which completed the enclosure of the block where the original Dry Dock Engine Company was founded, and represent the latest of the surviving buildings of the complex.

Shipbuilding continued at the facilities in Wyandotte and Detroit through the 1920s, with a substantial number of ships constructed in the World War I years of 1917-1919.

[17] The property owned by the Detroit Shipbuilding Company at Atwood and Orleans passed through several hands, being used by a cabinet shop and a stove manufacturer in the early 1930s.

[18] To facilitate the renovation, in 2007, the city received an Environmental Protection Agency brownfields grant to clean up the building.

[21] Instead of the proposed housing development, in 2013 the Michigan Department of Natural Resources began renovating the building into the Outdoor Adventure Center.

The building featured a load-bearing steel frame and non-load-bearing brick curtain walls, at the time a novel construction technique.

[23] Also in 1892, Berlin Iron Bridge also built a boiler shop of the same construction across Dequindre from the main complex; this building has since been demolished.

[31] The tall, wide construction of the building, containing an open space lacking support columns, reflects the desire to implement the crane into the company's manufacturing process.

[31] In fact, contemporaneous material from the Detroit Dry Dock Company extols the virtues of the open plan of the building, the "great advantages of light and air" afforded by the skylight and windows, and the effectiveness of the crane.

[29] In addition, the brick gave some protection from cold during winter months, with enough windows to maximize the interior light.

[29] This particular building exemplifies a link between the traditional past style of industrial architecture and the revolutionary change represented by steel framing.

[25] Like the machine shop, the foundry is constructed with a load-bearing steel frame sheathed with non-load-bearing brick.

[11] At some time afterward, possibly as late as the 1950s, the southernmost bay of the building was turned into a loading dock with the addition of an interior concrete block wall.