Interesting Ford fact I didn't know

[jwrightjr]

Maybe I'm late to the picnic with this one but it was something I didn't know. A colleague of mine emailed this too me because of my interest in Model T's. I thought it was interesting.

Ford Motor Company sold more than one million Ford Model-T’s in 1919, and each of those Model-T’s used 100 board feet of wood for the parts such as frame, dashboard, steering wheels and wheels.
Because of the amount of wood that had to be used in the cars, Henry Ford decided he wanted to produce his own supply. He enlisted the help of Edward G. Kingsford, a real estate agent in Michigan, to find him a supply of wood. Coincidentally, Kingsford's wife was a cousin of Ford – making the partnership a reality.
In the early 1920s, Ford acquired large timberland in Iron Mountain, Michigan, and built a sawmill and parts plant in a neighboring area (which became Kingsford, Michigan).
The mill and plants produced sufficient parts for the car but generated waste such as stumps, branches and sawdust. Ford suggested that all wood scraps were to be processed into charcoal.
A University of Oregon chemist, Orin Stafford, had invented a method for making pillow-shaped lumps of fuel from sawdust and mill waste combined with tar and bound together with cornstarch. He called the lumps "charcoal briquettes." Thomas Edison designed the briquette factory next to the sawmill, and Kingsford ran it. It was a model of efficiency, producing 610 lb (280 kg) of briquettes for every ton of scrap wood. The product was sold only through Ford dealerships.
Ford then named the new business Ford Charcoal and changed the name of the charcoal blocks to "briquets". At the beginning, the charcoal was sold to meat and fish smokehouses, but supply exceeded demand.
By the mid-1930s, Ford was marketing "Picnic Kits" containing charcoal and portable grills directly from Ford dealerships, capitalizing on the link between motoring and outdoor adventure that his own Vagabond travels popularized. "Enjoy a modern picnic," the package suggested.
"Sizzling broiled meats, steaming coffee, toasted sandwiches." It wasn't until after World War II that backyard barbecuing took off, thanks to suburban migration, the invention of the Weber grill and the marketing efforts. An investment group bought Ford Charcoal in 1951 and renamed it to Kingsford Charcoal in honor of Edward G. Kingsford (and the factory's home-base name) and took over the operations.
The plant was later acquired by Clorox in 1973.
How cool is that, huh? The story of Kingsford charcoal isn't merely "an American story," as their website proclaims. It's the bone and sinew of Americana itself, from start to finish.
Funny, too, how sour old Henry always seemed to find a way to make his famous parsimony pay off somehow—and if he couldn't find a way, he'd manufacture one himself. For a grouchy, greedy Capitalist Pig Industrialist, he was a creative fellow, full of unconventional ideas he wasn't the least bit timid about pursuing.
https://www.kingsford.com/country/about-us/

[DanTreace]

In truth, Henry Ford provided huge job opportunities with his business pursuits, but was mindful of waste, and was one of the first turn-of -the- century industrialists to pursue elimination and the potentials for re-use of waste materials.

That is so very much the opposite of grouchy and greedy

Read a bit more history at The Henry Ford:

https://www.thehenryford.org/collection ... ts/101417/

* Edward George Kingsford was born March 1, 1862, in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada. His family moved to a farm in Fremont, Michigan, when he was a young boy. At age 18, he left the farm to become a timber cruiser for a land agent in Marquette, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. As a young man, E.G. Kingsford also dealt in logging, timber sales, and real estate. In 1890, he married Mary Frances (Minnie) Flaherty. Ms. Flaherty was a first cousin to Henry Ford and had a close relationship with him. In 1908, E.G. Kingsford signed a contract with the Ford Motor Company, to become its sales agent in Marquette, Michigan, one of the oldest Model T dealers in Michigan. The new Model T's were then shipped by boat to Marquette. Several years later, the Kingsford's moved to Iron Mountain, Michigan, along with the Ford dealership. The Kingsford Motor Car Company occupied several buildings around Iron Mountain for several years, including an old livery.

In 1919, Mr. Kingsford was contacted by Henry Ford. Henry asked E.G. to come along on a camping trip out east to discuss land and timber in the Upper Peninsula (UP). Henry Ford had been eying resources in the U.P since about 1912. Mr. Kingsford was still dealing in real estate and timber. These "camping" trips consisted of such notables as Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, John Burroughs, and their wives.

Upon Mr. Kingsford's return to Iron Mountain, Ford proceeded to take options on approximately 400,000 acres of land and timber in the Upper Peninsula, which included several iron mines. The bulk of this was purchased from the Michigan Iron and Lumber Company.

E.G. also persuaded Henry to consider buying about 1,000 acres of land, just south of the Iron Mountain city limits, in Breitung Township. This property was flat farm land and was on the Menominee River. This would be the site of a new sawmill, dry kilns, body plant, and wood distillation facility, and would be the largest of its kind in the world. Henry saw to it that all waste be converted to charcoal too, with a briquetting operation for re-use of the wood waste.

At its peak in the 1920's, there would be about 7,000 employed at Iron Mountain. With the sudden growth of the local population, paved streets, sewers, and water lines followed. Ford Motor Company itself built about 160 homes next to the plant, in what is known as the Ford Addition. In 1923, about the same time Ford operations were in full swing, the Village of Kingsford was officially organized. Of course, the village was named after Mr. E.G. Kingsford, who who helped make it all possible. E.G. Kingsford passed away in 1943.

By 1951, most Ford operations in the U.P. were at their end. This included the Iron Mountain-Kingsford Plant. A handful of business men, local and outside the area, joined together to form the Kingsford Chemical Company, in 1951. One of the products of this new company, and the most famous, was Kingsford Charcoal Briquettes. This was a continuation of the Ford briquetting operations. Kingsford Chemical operated here until 1961. Briquette making was then moved to other parts of the country. After Kingsford Chemical pulled out, the sawmill, powerhouse, and distillation building were torn down.

* Abridged excerpts from City of Kingsford's 75th Jubilee book, Kingsford, The Town That Ford Built