Best Known Plant in History
The Rouge is arguably the best-known production facility in history, mostly due to the public tours instituted by Henry Ford in 1924, but also due to publicity film clips made over the years.
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| Arguably the best-know production factory ever, the Ford Rouge plant began production in 1918, and began public tours in 1924. (Photo: Ford Motor Company) |
Conceived by Henry Ford around 1914 for an iron foundry and a place to build his Fordson tractors, Ford originally wanted the site to manufacture parts for the Highland Park assembly plant, where the Model T was produced. But, his goal soon expanded to create a super complex of factories, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long and three quarters of a mile (1.2 km) wide that grew during the 1920s to produce a full steel facility, a vast Edison designed power house, plus tire and glass factories.
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| The Rouge lived up to Henry Ford's vertical intergation dream when the Model A began production. It was able to process raw materials and 72 hours later a finished car rolled out the factory doors. (Photo: Ford Motor Company) |
The Rouge fully grew into its own where raw materials entered one side of "the plant;" 24 hours later those materials were turned into parts; and then within 72 hours, finished cars rolled out of the assembly plant at the other end.
That was the dream of Henry Ford; it was a process known as vertical integration and the Rouge was Ford's crown jewel of manufacturing and the hub for a vast supplier network where Ford owned rubber plants in Brazil to coal plants, forests in northern Michigan to produce lumber, and iron mines in Wisconsin. At the time, the craftsmanship of auto suppliers was questionable and there were shortages of raw materials. Ford wanted to control his destiny.