Ford Motor Co. Branch Assembly Plants

Actually, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ford Assembly plant closed in 1926 and was replaced by the Somerville (Massachusetts) Assembly plant.

When the Edsel was developed, the Somerville plant became the only plant assembling just Edsels (other plants did other Ford and Mercury models). As most everyone knows, the Edsel turned out to be a disaster and the Somerville plant closed in 1958. Notably, the massive area the plant used to sit on is now the site of the "Assembly  Square Market", a gigantic indoor/outdoor mall, named after the plant.

I have a picture of the Somerville plant from the Boston Globe in my computer, but don't know if I can post it under Forum regulations. 

Here are some: https://www.boston.com/news/bu...squares-ford-factory 

And some Edsels: http://www.edsel.com/pages/edslprod.htm

Richie and Bobby- Thank you for the Boston area information. I would be looking at the Cambridge facility. It seems to be the only Branch Assembly Plant that incorporates a circular element on the elevation design. The plant is now part of MIT.

It is an interesting structure. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...setts_-_079995pv.jpg

The Cambridge plant was located on Memorial Drive along the banks of the Charles River, which separates Cambridge from Boston. Henry Ford had "decreed" that assembly plants were to have water access, if at all possible; presumably to facilitate shipping

Both Harvard and MIT have locations on Memorial Drive.

If you scroll down the list in the attached link to "memorial 640"  (the Ford plant's physical address was 640 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA) you will find four different photo's of the plant. Hope this helps.

BTW, although MIT now owns the structure, they have redeveloped it and leased out many spaces to biotech and lab companies.

https://wayback.archive-it.org...helf/cba/images.html

There was a Ford plant located in Edgewater NJ, at the east end of the Susquehanna RR tunnel, next to what became the Sealand Terminal.  Closed some time after WWII.

For info:  http://www.fordmotorhistory.co.../edgewater/index.php

Here are some of the Highland Park Plant in its heyday.  The plant is used today as a major storage facility for its records, office equipment, junk and vehicles models they've built over the years.

Contacting Ford Directly may not be of much use as those guys who claim to have the "Better Idea" threw out Hundreds and hundreds of photos back in the late Eighties to early Nineties.  

I was an employee, I had some access to the archives, and when I learned what they had done I almost lost a gasket as they would say.  Soooooo stupid on their part.  I was responsible for getting photos ready for our department to observe the 100th Anniversary of the company and they had hardly anything left from that era.

Anyway your best option may be to contact the "Henry Ford Museum" located in Dearborn, Michigan.

They may have some archival photos you could use for your project.

Doug --->Great Idea for a building. We all have those old Lionel 6414 auto-loaders in various versions, as well as the newer MTH and Lionel auto-carriers covered and open.

It would be great to tie those cars in with a nice structure where the track runs thru the building.

It looks like the Kearny, NJ Branch Assembly Plant was sold to Western Electric Company in 1928 in favor of the new state-of-the-art waterfront site in Edgewater. Right now I am only pursuing what I would call the original Branch Assembly Plants. I have not seen a picture yet of the Kearny building but a written descriptions calls out a 4-story structure. That would be in keeping with many of the others.

That being said, I really like the boiler building at the Edgewater site!

A quick search of the Ford archives revealed the address of the Chicago branch factory and a search of Google Earth revealed that the property no longer exists.  There is a Chicago fire station on the site now.  

The Chicago branch factory was only in use for about 10 years, before Ford opened an assembly plant at 12600 S. Torrence Avenue in 1924 (which is now labeled as Ford's oldest factory, per wiki).

NWL

NWL-

Thank you for the information. I find it interesting how fast Ford either outgrew the original Branch Assembly Plants or the engineering of the assembly line evolved. I found a timeline of all of the Ford plants and will use it to help make final decisions on which plants to model.

It's amazing what one can find on-line.

https://www.hemmings.com/stori...ed-production-effort

NWL

NWL-

Yes, I agree. I was looking at that link earlier today. I have to admit before Tuesday I had no idea that Model T's were made anywhere but Detroit. I know Albert Khan had designed the Packard Plant and Ford Motor Co. plants in Detroit, but I had no idea his firm was so important in the design development of assembly line architecture. The firm still does assembly line plant design today. I spoke with one of the principals today and have made a request for original design drawings for the purpose of making historically accurate O Scale models of several of the Branch Assembly Plants, starting with Cleveland. 

@Todds Architectural Models posted:

NWL-

Yes, I agree. I was looking at that link earlier today. I have to admit before Tuesday I had no idea that Model T's were made anywhere but Detroit. I know Albert Khan had designed the Packard Plant and Ford Motor Co. plants in Detroit, but I had no idea his firm was so important in the design development of assembly line architecture. The firm still does assembly line plant design today. I spoke with one of the principals today and have made a request for original design drawings for the purpose of making historically accurate O Scale models of several of the Branch Assembly Plants, starting with Cleveland. 

Doug,

I was aware that Ford had early factories in other cities.  I appraise commercial real estate in the Midwest and last year appraised a property on the corner of Ford Street and Cermak Road in Chicago.  At the time, I was told the property was originally a Ford Factory.  At the time I could not find any information relating to that building and Ford, other than the street name.  After seeing your post today, I did a bit more research, which caused me to search the historic Sanborn Fire Maps for Chicago.  The 1914 listing indicated the property was a Pool Table and Bar Furniture MFG company.  I researched a bit more and discovered the 3915 S. Wabash Avenue address and knew that the property on Ford Street was never a Ford factory.  

However, my research today allowed me to make a significant discovery relating to American Flyer prewar history (my primary focus), so it was a very rewarding day.

NWL

Your list has San Francisco listed as a Ford plant.  I am not aware of a Ford plant in San Francisco, if there was one it must have been gone early. The big Ford plant in this area was in Richmond, CA.  It is an interesting building , quite long.  At the south end the building ends right against a concrete dock that had a gantry crane on it. The dock is quite long, maybe the length of three ships. As I recall the plant has railroad sidings down both of the long sides of the building. Considering where the building is in Richmond, it must have been a Santa Fe switch.  During WWII the neighbor to the south would have been the Kaiser Ship Yards 1, 2, and 3.  They Were massive and covered about 10 square miles.  They would have made anything Ford was doing look insignificant. 

I think ford moved their operation to Milpitas about 1960. That plant was active until into the 1990s. The Richmond Ford plant must have fallen into the hands of some government agency as the University of California Berkeley used it for storage for many years.  About half the time you tried to check out a book from a UC library they had to order it up from the Ford plant. At some point the University was ask to move out and the facility was rebuilt; part of it was set up as small shops, the south end became a large rental hall.  I have been to several train meets there. The rest of it is the Rosie the Riveter National Monument.  A very interesting place to visit. For more information the a Richmond Museum would be a good place to start. I have not been there for many years, but I do recall that had the first car produced at the Richmond Ford Plant. The Rosie the Riveter National Monument would also be a good place to contact. Right now both of these places would be closed for the virus shutdown. 

David-

Here is the San Francisco information:

San Francisco, CA
21st and Harrison
  Assembly started: 1914
  Assembly ceased: June 1931 (moved to Richmond, CA)

That seems about average for the operating time of these plants. Thank you for the museum information. I have just been leaving our shop number and email address on the voicemails for when somebody comes in. I went to Lehigh University that has Packard Lab, home of the mechanical engineering department. You see the original Packard automobile when you walk in the main door. One of my fraternity brothers went on to Saginaw and worked on the initial design of Tilt Wheel. 

NWL-

Once upon a time there was no Google Earth 3D. Us modelmakers used Sanborn maps to develop heights of context buildings on massing models. We used the Sanborn mapping of Springfield, MA to size our Birthplace of Basketball project. The building was torn down in the mid 1960’s and all roads led us to the conclusion that the original design drawings were lost in a fire in the early 1900’s. Interesting how the next iteration showed the building now running the entire block and a small timber framed church moved from street-front to behind the main building. Photos show a repeating pattern of the building elevation elements, to me an early version of modular design and construction. 

@Allegheny posted:

Here are some of the Highland Park Plant in its heyday.  The plant is used today as a major storage facility for its records, office equipment, junk and vehicles models they've built over the years.

Contacting Ford Directly may not be of much use as those guys who claim to have the "Better Idea" threw out Hundreds and hundreds of photos back in the late Eighties to early Nineties.  

I was an employee, I had some access to the archives, and when I learned what they had done I almost lost a gasket as they would say.  Soooooo stupid on their part.  I was responsible for getting photos ready for our department to observe the 100th Anniversary of the company and they had hardly anything left from that era.

Anyway your best option may be to contact the "Henry Ford Museum" located in Dearborn, Michigan.

They may have some archival photos you could use for your project.

 

I'm not sure if you're aware, but I believe that a pretty large chunk of the archives maintained at The Henry Ford Museum is the former Ford archive materials.  They would indeed likely have a lot of photos and reference materials to assist in projects such as this.  The Museum is still more or less totally shut down aside from essential needs, so I believe you'd be limited to whatever is already digitized and on the website until things are up and running again.

https://www.thehenryford.org/c...ctions-and-research/

In order to replicate these buildings you need to understand the assembly flow inside to the transport of the units to the rail lines. As a guess I would imagine multiple long assembly lines that feed the finished units into the rail line by ramps or overhead cranes.  

@SantaFe158 posted:

I'm not sure if you're aware, but I believe that a pretty large chunk of the archives maintained at The Henry Ford Museum is the former Ford archive materials.  They would indeed likely have a lot of photos and reference materials to assist in projects such as this.  The Museum is still more or less totally shut down aside from essential needs, so I believe you'd be limited to whatever is already digitized and on the website until things are up and running again.

https://www.thehenryford.org/c...ctions-and-research/

Jake,

Thank you very much for the link.

I'm very aware of the Henry Ford archives as I've used them in the past.  They do have some things from the parent company.  But unfortunately untold quantity of material has been permanently lost due to short mindedness.

But what I noted in my note was not hearsay, as I was in direct contact with the photo department.  

The manager noted that they destroyed hundreds of negatives (large format) from that era without giving it any real thought.  Unfortunately like many things in life, we regret earlier decisions much later. 

This was one such case as when the 100th anniversary came around in 2003 they were scrambling for photos.  There even was a communque to employees for old photos!  Such a shame really.  I've visited their offices when they were located in the Glass House off of Michigan avenue many times getting prints made.

Now the opposite is true for GM.  They have everything recorded.  And I mean everything.  I only know this from direct personal experience while working there among folks who did this work day in and day out.  

Alan-

I am starting with the exterior front elevation for the purpose of creating an accurate shadowbox model. Once we have the elevations designed it is relatively easy to develop and construct a building. Once the building shell is made, the sky is the limit as to what may be on the inside. I have located one photograph so far that shows rail service on the outside of one of the original plants.

The front elevations photographs that are currently available probably endured because they were publicity shots. Those photographs may be compared to color shots of surviving buildings. It seems a little harder to find documentation of the "business" end and sides of the building- what railroad modelers need to make a scene.

What I thought would be enticing is that the once the basic architectural design is in AutoCAD, it will be relatively easy to make the Branch Assembly Plant from another city. For instance, it appears that Cincinnati is a mirror image of Cleveland. So far I am out on a limb with one taker for a Cleveland, OH version of the Branch Assembly Plants. I'll concentrate on that and have patience while my sources look into available documents. 

Here's a really cool WWII era shot of the Richmond, CA plant which replaced the original Branch Assembly Plant as discussed above.

During WW II my late father was a QA engineer at Chrysler, or it might have been Ford, in Detroit making military units under the War Powers Act.

He stayed after the war making autos. Unfortunately , I have no photos or records.