legends and car manufacturers...

The legend as I’ve been told goes something like this. Henry Ford was in his mid 50’s and had already built a huge plant in Detroit, and by 1918 half the cars in America were Model T’s. Sales passed over 500,000 and according to Forbes Magazine in 2008 dollars he was personally worth over 180 BILLION dollars. In 1920 he and his good friend Thomas Edison made a trip to Muscle Shoals, AL and promised to build a city 75 miles long and a plant that would employ one million people. Property sold and resold, entries into lots were built that to this day nearly 100 years later lead to nowhere.

Legend is that someone in the town was rude to him one morning while he was out walking and that he got angry, left Alabama and never returned. Other stories include political wrangling over the ownership of Wilson dam. I’ve often wondered what might have been and what North Alabama might have been like had Ford’s dream come true. I’m not entirely sure it would have been better.

Now here’s the ironic thing. While Detroit stills labels itself motor city I wonder if more cars are now build in the south than there. In the last 20 or so years Nissan and GM have built plants in Tennessee, Toyota in Mississippi, Mercedes, Honda and Hyundai in Alabama and not Volkswagen is narrowing its search for a place to build between north Alabama and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Just seems rather ironic to me...