Location: Gladstone, MI - Ford Motor Company Property (former Soo Line property)

Notes

Time Line

1931. Purchase of an industrial site in the city of Gladstone was announced by the Ford Motor company through E.G. Kingsford of Iron Mountain, the company's representative in the upper peninsula. Although Mr. Kingsford declined to elaborate, it is understood from reliable sources that the site will be used for a blast furnace, foundry and glass plant. All of the ore used in the furnace will be mined from properties recently purchased in Dickinson County by Ford, including large tracts in both Iron Mountain and Norway. In addition, reports are that the company is planning to establish a fabricating mill in upper Michigan where the foundry castings will be machined. The Gladstone site is about 175 acres in size and nearly all of it was purchased from the Soo Line railroad and George L. Sliming. The Gladstone site provides the company with a deep water frontage on Little Bay de Noc of a mile and a half. Until recently, the property was used by the Soo Line railway for its docks. The location has other advantages of rail connections with the Soo Line as well as the C&NW and the CMStP&P railways. The latter two roads do not enter Gladstone but will make arrangements to serve the Ford plant. [BHN-1931-0313] Ed. Note: Most of the planned facilities were never built.

1932. Plans of the Cargill Grain company to store again in the large terminal elevator here was made known yesterday when two truckloads of machinery and a crew of men arrived from Green Bay and Minneapolis. The crew started work immediately on getting the elevator in shape and setting up the machinery. The grain will arrive by boat and the machinery will suck the grain from the hold of the boat to the elevator bins. The elevator has been empty for nearly a year, several thousand bushels of grain have been removed shortly after the land on which it stands was transferred to the Ford Motor company by the Soo Line railroad. [EDP-`921-0818]

1933. March. Scrap lumber, worthless for future building use, from the warehouses and dock on the Ford site here which are now being razed, will be given to the city's indigent for fuel purposes. Old residents recalled when package freighters lined the dock three abreast, the Longshoremen's association was in full swing and Gladstone was the scene of great activity. One of the warehouses was built in 1889, within two years of the time the Soo Line was extended into the city. The warehouse had a capacity of 80,000 barrels of flour. Business was so great that the storage capacity of the building proved insufficient and forced the erection of a second warehouse. [EDP-1933-0323]

1937. George Nolden has been named to head the Delta Coal & Dock Company as president. The company was organized last year in connection with Chicago and Detroit interests, who control some of the richest coal fields in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia, having their own fleet of self-unloading boats, the modern method of handling and transporting coal from lower lake ports to docks on the Great Lakes. Docks of the Delta Coal & Dock company are located on the Ford property at Gladstone where formally the Pittsburgh Coal Company operated, and will have available for wholesale and retain distribution of coal and coke. [EDP-1937-0331]

1938. August. Henry Ford, extensive owner of upper peninsula properties, said Wednesday on an inspection trip through this area that serious consideration was being given a plan to rebuild the old Soo Line railroad docks and wharves at Gladstone to facilitate Ford Motor company transportation. Ford products from Iron Mountain would be moved by boat from the Gladstone port to Dearborn.

The motor magnate inspected the waterfront property at Gladstone and company farms along the Escanaba river at West Gladstone. He pointed out that his company's boats now are running into Marquette and L'Anse and that it appeared logical to make use of the Gladstone harbor facilities. 

Lumber from Iron Mountain was formally transported over the now-abandoned W&M railway to Menominee to connect with the Ann Arbor railroad car ferry. Ford said selective logging would be practiced in the future of his timber tracts in the upper peninsula as a conservative (sic) measure. He discussed his model lumbering community at Alberta where he aims to make lumbering and agriculture point factors in a self-sustaining economy. [PHTH-1938-0811]