All Things Buick: Factory #40 1920

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Factory #40 1920

Here is the heat treat facility #41 for factory #40. This south-west view shows just a small part of factory #40 above the roof at right. A small piece of factory #06 can be seen in the distance at right. In my time bridge #23 was just making it’s decent to Division Street here and blocking this whole view. There was a door and ladder leading from the bridge to old #41′s roof. We used to smoke pot there. Link for 1920 construction plans.

A ground level view of the same area shown below. That is Division Street running south along factory #40.

Here you can see the heat treat facility at the north-end of #40 plus the truck dock. They had a much larger enclosed truck dock built later that extended all the way to the north wall of the heat treat, and that burnt in a fire in the early 90′s.

This north facing view of factory #40 shows great detail of the east wall. The covered rail platform shown in the photo below is the peaked roof structure shown here just south of the heat treat facility. Factory #02 can be seen in the far distance.

This is the rail loading dock for factory #40 when the covered dock is just being constructed. It was located towards the north-east wall adjacent to the Pere Marquette main line.

These two photos were taken just months apart, with the large one showing the power plant with just one smoke stack completed.

This advertisement is from the trade journal Factory and Industrial Management, Volume 63, Issue 5 in May 1922. I walked down these very steps (shown below) many times during my early years at Buick. These stairs were removed during the remodel before buick City was created in 1985. Here is the link showing this in 1984:

Memories Before Buick City

1937.

This is factory #40 which was Buick’s new transmission plant in 1920. This photo shows some of the final details being completed. The insert shows interior construction. The Buick power-house in the distance is also under construction. I spent many hours in this factory. This was always my favorite because it was like a trip back in time. I especially liked exploring it in the late 70′s when it was abandoned and condemned. One thing I did not like seeing was the rain that leaked in and was getting onto the old laminated die makers patterns. These were beautiful works of art that represented many years of Buick automobiles. Below are shown the same stairs I walked many times only this is 1934.