Henry Ford Touring Highland Park Power Plant (1919)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 มิ.ย. 2009
- Henry Ford needed electricity to power his Highland Park Plant, where Model Ts were made. In this footage, Ford tours a group through the factory's power plant. The group examines one of the internal combustion/steam engines, which supplied energy to light the buildings and power the assembly line.
(Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, MI)
Learn more about the collections of The Henry Ford:
www.thehenryford.org/
www.collections.thehenryford.org - บันเทิง
My great great grandfather Carl Unruh was Mr. Fords personal aid in engineering starting from 1916 till he passed from a heart attack in 1953.
Even stationary, these engines are mesmerizing. Few machines are as simultaneously brutal and elegant as big reciprocating engines.
My grandfather worked for the designer of those 'Gas-Steam' engines, Mr. Edward Gray. Elmer LeSuer, my grandfather, started working for him in Oil City, PA at Riverside Engine where Mr. Ford ordered the first power plant engine for Highland Park, in 1909. Then Henry offered Edward a million dollar contract to come to Highland Park and be his Chief Engineer and Construction Engineer- and my grandfather came with him- he had already been his personal draftsman for 3½ years. Gray next designed a 5000 hp 'gas only' engine before designing the 6000 hp 'Gas-Steam' engine, of which nine were built. There is one in the Henry Ford Museum, moved there in 1929 as the first item installed in the museum. In the museum it looks larger because you walk up to it at what was the 'lower floor' level, more than a third of it is below main floor level here. That flywheel weighs 100 tons, the whole engine over 700 tons. They couldn't use motorized cranes to install it so hand powered hoists and carts brought the pieces in. Mr. Ford had to fight his own guys to save this one, they wanted to scrap them all and move on. These powered DC generators so were not practical anymore and were actually shut down by 1926 with AC power coming from the River Rouge plant some ten miles away, not long before the last Model Ts were built at Highland Park. Interesting times! There's a picture of the craneway that Gray also designed. (Yes, Albert Kahn was the main architect but Gray designed most of the interior layouts.) flic.kr/p/7bMpwL
this is the coolest piece in henry's museum..totally awesome !! looks smaller her, is not tho !
No it isn't small at all, that flywheel weighs 100 tons! Most likely my grandfather did the blueprints for it that were sent down to Hamilton, Ohio for it to be built. Grandpa was Mr. Edward Gray's draftsman, first at Riverside Engine in Oil City, PA, where Mr. Ford bought his first power plant engine then decided to hire Mr. Gray away from there around 1910 to be his Chief Engineer and Construction Engineer and grandpa (Elmer LeSuer) came with him to Highland Park.
What a machine! Awesome. Thanks for posting.
Owning 9 of those and saving 1 makes henry Ford the man !
I believe there are 2.
@Jesse Murray where is the other ?
I've always wondered what they would sound like running.
That is one whompus kitty huge cylinder driving that generator flywheel. Amazing!
Nowadays they would be wearing hardhats and goggles...
I counted 44 revs in 30sec so I guess it was running at 88rpm. I didn't know they had guards on those crankshafts.
My grandfather worked with Edward Gray, who designed the first large power plant at Highland Park. Edward Gray moved on to work with Detroit Edison at the Conners Creek power station. flic.kr/p/r1xH8J
At 2:05 into this I wonder if that's Edward Gray! This would be five years after he left but I think he still had contact with Ford. The tallest one looks a lot like the man on the left in this one, my grandfather on the right- taken in Oil City c. 1906
See www.flickr.com/gp/rushhourphoto/PoJoJ5
i would have loved to hear that thing & see it move...too bad the one at The Ford is merely a static display.
Yes