Notable Quotes #22: Henry Ford Scopes out Highland c. 1923

Enamored with the location, Henry Ford personally came to Saint Paul in 1923 to triumphantly visit after having wheeled and dealed his way into gaining control over the hydroelectric dam on the Mississippi River. He brought his son Edsel with him, then President of Ford Motor Company, as well as a retinue of hangers-on to survey the terrain for the new factory. (Fun fact: Ford Parkway was originally named "Edsel Road.")

Here's the fascinating description from a reporter who was there, describing what Highland Park and the Ford Site looked like back then. It's from Brian McMahon's wonderful book, The Ford Century in Minnesota:

It didn't look very industrial then. In fact there wasn't a wisp of smoke to be seen -- nothing but thickly wooded hills and moist dales, open patches of grasses beginning to grow green with the life of a new season, ravines running with spring's hastening water, and beyond the cleft waterway of the Mississippi, one of the most beautiful pictures in Minnesota's abundant gallery. Henry Fold pulled his heel out of the soft earth and swept his eye over the whole semi-circle. The expression in his serene face quickened with imagination. He heard the drum of steam exhausts, the detonations of dynamite, the straining of cables, the musketry of riveters, making a giant new plant for him, while to most folks living in the chosen city the whole project seemed like the circus giraffe to the farmer -- "There isn't no such thing."

Kind of fascinating to think about the changes that have happened since then. [See also, The Origin of Highland.]