An early figure in Wyandotte was Captain John Baptiste Ford, who used the salt to create soda ash, which in turn was used to create plate glass. In 1893, he created Michigan Alkali Company, which created baking soda, soda ash and lye. The company, later renamed Wyandotte Chemicals Co., went on to create a variety of soaps and cleaners, and eventually became part of BASF and expanded into the BASF industrial complex. Wyandotte, 1896

Ward also help create Wyandotte's shipbuilding role, which existed from the 1870s into the 1920s. During that time, a wide variety of boats were created along Wyandotte's riverbank, from steamers and tugs to huge ferries. In 1873, Ward's Wyandotte Iron Ship Building Works built the nation's earliest steel-hulled vessel, a tug called the Sport.

Beginning in the 1920s Wyandotte was a major source of toy production, with the All Metal Products Company founded in 1920 and located in Wyandotte on Sycamore St. between 14th and 15th St. From the 1920s until the 1950s the company, under the name "Wyandotte Toys", was the nation's largest manufacturer of toy guns and pistols, producing a wide variety of pop guns, clicker pistols, dart guns, cap guns and a variety of plastic pistols. The company also produced a wide range of toy airplanes and other vehicles by pressing scrap metal obtained from local automobile factories. The company's motto was "Wyandotte Toys Are Good and Safe." In the early 1950s the company moved to Ohio, and was bought out by Louis Marx and Company three years later.

Wyandotte's Bishop Park used to have a dock to board the Boblo Boat ferry to Boblo Island.

Today, much of the industry has disappeared. An notable exception is BASF Wyandotte.

In July 2001, three workers at an Atofina plant just south of Wyandotte were killed when a rail car leaked a colorless gas called methyl mercaptan. The gas exploded into flames and led to the emergency evacuation of 2,000 area residents, including some Wyandotte citizens.

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