Factory #04 Second Floor Pit

This is the pit I worked in for 6 months in 1976 before going into the materials group #88. My feelings about this job were a little different than this worker. He states that this was the best job he has had. Which tells you his previous jobs were pretty bad. This job consisted of inserting and tightening the lower front fender bolts, hooking up the emergency brake cable, placing a dial gauge on the cable then bringing the tension up to spec. Cockroaches and mice were your constant companion in the pit. I had one woman that had a legal prescription for marijuana fall into the pit one day. She fell on the fan and required 37 stitches. After that she had to be relieved to smoke her joints. The thing that made it good for the rest of us was the fact that we could smoke ours over behind the escalator and not be detected by the smell.  I still have my cassette recorder that was used in this pit back in 1976 out in my barn. I even have the special mix tapes I used back then. I guess I'm what is called a "Hoarder".

 Link:

Factory #40 1983  

This almost looks like me doing my job only this is 17 years earlier.

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.  

 links:

Factory #40′s End

Factory #40 1997

Factory #40 1920′s

Factory #40 machining 1950′s

Factory #40 1984

Inside Bridge #23

Inside Bridge #23

Bridge #23 1940

Buick 1909

Buick 1940

These ash-trays and signs were set out at the dealer conventions.

 They also received a Curtice silver dollar and Buick match books.

Shown here are the 1940 colors that look straight out of Crayola. Back then smoking was required by all.

Buick 1949

They came pretty close to calling it Buick City in 1949 "as evidenced by the text ". But they stopped short by calling it "Buick Town". You can super enlarge just about any photo on this blog for viewing small details. The way this is done is a little different depending on which browser is used. 

These are all from my own collection. 

Assorted Images of Buick.

This is factory #36 in 1962.

This shows a train wreak at the Buick site in 1920.

Factory #36 in 1962.

This view inside factory #29 shows W.H. Kellanay lapping gears on a gun mount.

Factory #66 which was the crankshaft factory. This photo is facing east shortly after construction in 1926. This factory is still standing as of this posting.

Factory #11 showing work on 20mm shell casings. Dated 6-17-1942.

The City That Never Was.

Like so many ideas for the Buick City site these tentative plans never seen their day in the sun. These beautification ideas were to coincide with the Auto World theme park located at the old I.M.A. site in downtown Flint. But as history has shown us, Auto World was a bad idea from the start. A few trees and bush's were planted around the factory complex but no major landscaping ever took place. There never was enough real planning done by the Buick City team. In 1983 they handed around a questionnaire which asked the question "Which restaurant would the employees most like located on the second floor of Buick City". At that time production was to be limited to the first floor only. But we soon learned that we needed all available space at the facility. The plans for a fast food restaurant were soon scraped. As I recall Burger King won out. This is from my personal collection. 

Unknown Buick badge

Adam Havasi a WW II researcher from Hungary, is trying to identify this Buick artifact. Following is his letter. Anyone with information as to what this is "PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT".

Lately I am working on an aircraft crash site where I found the enclosed Buick badge (the scale is in millimeters). My personal opinion is that this plate may be the top of a finger ring, or it is a mini badge without the pin, but I know there are many more opportunities.

It is heavily burned and that is why the bubbles are in the blue surface. Even the text was under the blue molten material, which made it unreadable until I was cleaning it a bit. That is why I think it was on-board until the crash.

The GM - Buick Center had chased me down to Hell after asking them the same question.

So, would you please help me finding out what that small badge really is, and when it may be dated?

Thank you very much!

Friendly regards,

Adam Havasi

Buick City News

You can super enlarge just about any photo on this blog for viewing small details. The way this is done is a little different depending on which browser is used.

Paul Miller who said he was a pilot during the VietNam era hated long haired workers. He would stand behind me at my desk and make derogatory statements about hippies. I'm sure he advanced fast, because he loved writing paper on employees. 

Future Buick historian Kevin Kirbitz.