Photos: See history of Willow Run, from B-24 bomber and engines to bankruptcy

• Michigan made aviation history during World War II at a factory in Ypsilanti Township that Henry Ford built
• Willow Run housed car production until General Motors closed it and filed for bankruptcy. Most of it was demolished
• Michigan entities bought the land to build the American Center for Mobility, which is experiencing financial pressures over a $35 million loan from the state

YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP — Michigan’s bragging rights as the arsenal of democracy started at Willow Run bomber plant, which churned out one B-24 “Liberator” bomber an hour and laid claim to employing the original Rosie the Riveter.

Ford Motor Co. built the bomber plant in Ypsilanti Township on the edge of Willow Run Airport, seemingly overnight transforming the former farm fields into a goliath. At the time, it was the world’s largest factory under a single roof and employed 42,500 people.

After the war, General Motors Corp. bought the plant in 1956 and converted it to build transmissions, while expanding a nearby plant to assemble the Chevrolet Corvair and Nova.  

But by the time GM filed for bankruptcy in 2009, the plant’s production had dwindled to next to nothing and the facility was closed and turned over to a public trust during the automaker’s bankruptcy.

Related: Michigan sunk $67M into self-driving car test track. Now, some fear bankruptcy

Today, the property is the site of the American Center for Mobility, which offers testing for connected and autonomous vehicles. Despite a $67 million investment from the state, the center now faces financial hurdles as a $35 million loan is overdue. 

Here’s a photographic history of the site.

Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Co., planned to make aircraft parts in a new factory on farmland he owned near Willow Run Creek. 

He worked with famed industrial designer Albert Kahn to start construction in 1940; according to The Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, work quickly shifted to building a facility that could make the full airplane on assembly lines on-site. (Associated Press)

The sole product of the factory was the Consolidated B-24 “Liberator” bomber. The aircraft could fly longer than the B-17 “Flying Fortress” but it also was harder to handle. The US deployed the bomber to all theaters of World War II. All told, about 18,500 were made, with nearly 9,000 manufactured by Ford at Willow Run. It still is a record-holder for the most-produced bomber. (Courtesy of Ann Arbor District Library)

The scale of the factory was immense: 3.5 million square feet, with 42,500 employees. This photo shows fixtures holding bomber wings during assembly. (Associated Press)

Keeping 42,500 people working at the factory was a big job, with 8,200 per week drafted into military service. Training was ongoing, as was hiring. So many people moved to the area to work at the factories that housing was in short supply — some reported workers sharing beds in shifts. Ford built dormitories nearby for housing, eventually creating Willow Run Village. Just a few buildings remain there today. (Courtesy of Ann Arbor District Library)

Willow Run also led the way with employing women in factories as men were drafted. These women are spot welding. The phenomenon led to the Rosie the Riveter cultural icon showing a strong woman stepping into a new and important production role. Who was the original Rosie? There are a few contenders, including Rose Will Monroe, who moved to Willow Run from Kentucky. (Courtesy of Library of Congress)

This worker is welding parts of the cooling system direct to the supercharger. (Courtesy of Library of Congress)

After bomber production stopped, Ford sold the factory to automotive start-up Kaiser-Frazer in 1946. The automaker paid $15,100,000 through the War Assets Administration, converting the plant to eventually make 325,000 vehicles. The first one rolled off the line in 1946. (Courtesy of the Ann Arbor District Library)

General Motors bought Willow Run in 1956, after a fire destroyed its Livonia transmission plant a few years earlier. After moving its Detroit Transmission Division to the factory, it employed an average of 8,000 people and was valued at more than $22 million. (Courtesy of Ann Arbor District Library). 

GM’s Powertrain division operated until 2010 at Willow Run (close to the former Willow Run Assembly factory, which closed in the 1990s after GM moved its production to Arlington, Texas.) By then, GM was in bankruptcy, and through bankruptcy the property was transferred into RACER Trust. The court-monitored trust was charged with maintaining, environmental cleanup and selling the dozens of mothballed former GM properties, many in Michigan. 

The obsolete factory was demolished, except for a portion used by the Michigan Flight Museum.(Associated Press)

For the rest of the property, state officials decided to turn it into an automotive testing zone for the nascent connected and automotive vehicle development. An entity of the state of Michigan bought the property from RACER Trust, leasing it to the new American Center for Mobility. (From Michigan Economic Development Corporation video). 

Infrastructure on the property was easily adaptable to real-world road conditions. After the state added unused roadways to the parcel, the American Center for Mobility totaled about  500 acres. Plans called for a research park to be built on a portion of the land, but no construction has taken place. (Screenshot of Michigan Economic Development Corporation video)

Federal, state and local officials cheered the vision for the property, with state funding totaling over $75 million on the property acquisition and development. However, operating revenue never reached projections. The state canceled a $15 million loan and the American Center for Mobility is supposed to start repayment this year on a separate $35 million loan from the state. (From Michigan Economic Development Corporation video).

While the future of the Willow Run factory site will be sorted out this year and beyond, its history remains in American consciousness. World War II pulled the nation together for victory, but it came at a cost. This B-24 crew named their plane “Hot Stuff,” and it was the first bomber to complete 25 missions. A crash into a mountain killed all but one on board. Today, just 13 B-24s survive, four from Willow Run. (From the Ypsilanti Historical Society via Creative Commons)

More about the B-24 and the Willow run bomber plant can be seen in this historic video.