Chadwick Model T factory

[jammer_smith]

Has anyone else checked out the old Model T factory in Chadwick. You can't miss it, it's right across the street from the Gas Station and was clearly a factory of some kind. I asked the lady in the Gas Station and she told me it was a Model T Ford plant way back in the day when the rail road went through Chadwick. The new cars would be loaded right on the train and away they went. Apparently at the same time Sparta was considered the neighbouring town of ill-repute where hooligans off the trains would go to partake of drink and the company of soiled doves.

Anyway, back to the old factory, the most recent use of it is that an old lady who had inherited the property had walled off part of the interior and made a small apartment within the factory where she lived until she died a few years ago. Now it's abandoned. The inside is pretty much just full of old junk, but there are some interesting things inside. I asked the Gas Station lady if she thought anyone would care if I just walked around the took a few pictures, and she said probably nobody would care.

[mindwaave]

Cool! Were you able to take any pictures?

[ccsucher]

That at the intersection of 125 and chadwick? There is a big ass junk yard just north of there.

[RedRook]

Yep, looks like this:
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/chad ... derby.html

[ccsucher]

Yeah I have that building marked in case I am ever out that way. Like to see some interior pics.

[jammer_smith]

The inside mostly just looks like any other old warehouse or barn, just a bunch of random junk from like the 70s on. Nothing that great.

The only really neat thing inside is 1-the corner that is sectioned off to be an apartments, which is unique, but just full of normal abandoned house stuff, and there are some like pits in the floor that lead to small lower level chambers. I didn't have a flash light last time I visited, but I heard water dripping so I think they are flooded, not sure. I also don't think there is a full basement level, just these small rooms. Perhaps where a car would be pushed over head so part of the assembly could be done from below?

[gimpface]

I've heard that rumor a lot (that it was a Ford plant) but the logistics of it just don't make sense. Ford's whole business model was based on mass manufacturing in huge facilities which that place is not. I think it likely that it might have been a dealership or something (and its location near the railroad would make it convenient for receiving shipments of vehicles), but I have a hard time believing that it was a factory. Wayne Glenn would be the guy to ask, I might shoot him an email to see if he knows anything about it.

As for the old lady, I thought people were bullshitting me about her until I saw her come out of her apartment and wander around a bit. I didn't know that she had died, though... I usually hear about those sorts of things in Chadwick.

[gimpface]

Here's what Wayne Glenn sent me:

I am sure they didn't make Fords there, but in the pre- WWII era it was not unsual for the following to happen with Ford Model T.
1) the Frisco Railroad would ship the Ford in major parts in large wooden boxes. 2) When uncrated the parts would be assembled by local mechanics and then sold in a hardware store, like the one operated by the Harris family.
That may be the way this story got started. My grandfather Almus Payne helped put autos together like that at Nixa in 1921.

So that seems to make a lot of sense, maybe it was just a general store or mechanic/hardware shop that assembled cars to be sold.

[BROUSER]

Wayne has a pretty good grasp on what happened, so I'll buy it. Makes more sense, anyway.

[jammer_smith]

When the lady in the gas station first told me it was a Model T factory my initial reaction was also "but it's so small". So an assembly location rather than a manufacturing location, that does make much more sense.

And yeah, I'm pretty sure the lady at the gas station told me that there "Used to be old gal living in there, but it's empty now". She didn't specifically say "dead" I guess I just assumed that. However, in any event, it was unoccupied when I visited which was last spring.