A Short History of the Ford Plant: Industrial Archaeology and Economic Change in St. Paul
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About this ebook
Brian McMahon
Brian McMahon is a trained architect who has written and lectured widely on architectural and urban history. He is completing a book on the history of the Ford Motor Company in Minnesota for the University of Minnesota Press.
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A Short History of the Ford Plant - Brian McMahon
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FORD PLANT
INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND ECONOMIC CHANGES IN ST. PAUL
Brian McMahon
An MHS Express e-short
logo.jpg© 2013 by the Minnesota Historical Society. Allr ights reserved. No part of this book may be used or repoduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, write to the Minnesota Historical Society Press, 345 Kellogg Blvd. W., St. Paul, MN 55102-1906.
www.mhspress.org
The Minnesota Historical Society Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
International Standard Book Number
ISBN: 978-0-87351-914-4 (e-book)
The most famous man in the world arrived in St. Paul on a brisk spring day in 1923 to explore his new acquisition, a 167-acre site on a beautiful bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, complete with its own hydroelectric power plant. Henry Ford, known far and wide for his success with mass production, for providing affordable cars to workers, and for paying workers enough to buy the cars they made, was planning to build a new plant. The trip to Minnesota was an opportunity to see for himself the location of the assembly plant that he had known only through aerial photographs and architectural drawings.
01postcard-img571.jpgPostcard, about 1925
Ford was, by nature, someone who needed to walk in the fields, kneel down and touch the grass, stir the soil and take in the entire environment. And given the significance of the site, he took a special interest in the design of the plant. I wanted to be sure we not only would not injure any of the beauty of the location, but would so locate our plant and make it of such design that the beauties would be enhanced,
he explained. So I told the boys we’d lay the plans aside just as they were for a couple of days and I would go up there with them and see the ground myself.
A reporter from a St. Paul newspaper was on hand to capture Ford’s visit to the site on April 25, 1923.
It didn’t look very industrial then. In fact there wasn’t a wisp of smoke to be seen—nothing but thickly wooded hills and moist dales, open patches of grasses beginning to grow green with the life of a new season, ravines running with spring’s hastening water, and beyond the cleft waterway