Country Connections
James and Ellen Perry
It’s 1893 in the mountains of East Tennessee. There are no TVA nor are there lakes in East Tennessee nor northern Alabama. In the mountains of East Tennessee and north Alabama, work is done by manpower and draft animals. A few oxen are still being used mostly for snaking logs from the mountains to local sawmills or to railroad loading sites scattered through the regions with heavy timber concentrations.
Fields for crops were turned every spring by either oxen or horses handled by men or grown boys. Planting was done also by mostly mules or horse.
Children walked to local community schools that taught grades one through eight by usually a local teacher who might have a high school education. Most kids, when graduating the eighth grade could not attend high school which usually was located in the county seat, and some areas did not have a high school. The dropout rate after the third grade was enormous.
Farm families traded at the local mercantile or grocery store. There was no Walmart or Target stores. Most families worshiped at the local church. Denomination didn’t matter because there was no transportation other than horse drawn wagons or buggies. Families were large, usually with eight or more children. It took the entire family to survive.
The lifestyle of hard work and living in a local environment with very few conveniences was about to change because of a young Irish descendent in Michigan by the name of Henry Ford.
Henry Ford built his first gasoline engine in late 1893 and built his first horseless carriage in 1896. For the next seven years he improved models. He lost investors who did not care about dependability but wanted sales. Henry Ford carried on, and in 1902 he left Henry Ford Co. and the name was changed to Cadillac Motor Co.
In 1903 Henry Ford started the Henry Ford Motor Company with funding from ordinary people and not wealthy investors.
On October 1, 1908, Henry Ford introduced the Model T Ford which was marketed to the ordinary man and not the wealthy class as all other cars produced in 1908 were.
The Model T was produced from 1908 ’til 1927, a total of 19 years, and produced over 15 million cars. It is still the record for production of a single type of car.
The Model T Ford changed America and American manufacturing techniques forever. Henry Ford saw early on in building the Model T that he needed to speed up the process, so he was the first to develop and use the moving assembly line in 1915. The moving assembly line doubled the output of Model Ts, which lowered the price in 1916 to $345.
Henry Ford also saw the problem with the availability of materials to keep his assembly lines moving. He then started to acquire and build his own manufacturing of most parts and components for the manufacturing of the Model Ts.
He opened his own coal mines in Kentucky, iron ore operations from Michigan and Minnesota, he ferried to his auto plants by his Great Lakes freighter boats to his stamping plants and supplied lumber from his own 700,000 acres of timber.
The Model T had wooden floorboards milled at Ford’s own sawmill. Henry Ford Motor Company even owned its own glassworks company for the manufacture of windshields and engine gauge faces.
As the Henry Ford Motor Company progressed from the Model T introduction in 1908, the company put out a new Model T every twenty-four seconds because of Henry Ford’s genius, producing 50 percent of all cars during the span of the Model T. The price to the average American fell from $950 in 1908 to $290 in 1927.
The Model T had a 20 hp 177 cu. in. 4-cylinder flathead engine which would get 25 mpg with a top speed of 45 miles per hour.
Up until 1925, Ford had six different Model T cars in production. In 1925, Ford introduced the Model T factory assembled pickup truck. Ford sold 1.3 million Model T trucks in 1928.
The Model T gave the American common people the ability to travel as never before. A family could travel together in a Model T for the price of what only one person could do before. You must remember that in 1908 there were hardly any paved roads.
Most roads were widened trails made originally by animals and Indians searching for animals along creeks, rivers and lakes in their tribal hunting lands. These trails were widened by manpower and draft animals into rough pikes as they were called.
By the end of the Model T production in 1927 there were more paved roadways near the bigger cities that extended a few miles into the country farms. The U.S. highway system improved greatly after WWII as General Eisenhower, later President Eisenhower, saw the much better four-lane systems built in Germany before WWII.
The Ford Model T started what the United States is today with our interstate system, state, county, city and federal paved roads, ability to access hospitals, schools, entertainment events, churches, lake boating, camping, food supermarkets, drug stores, restaurants, formerly a big part of America the drive-in movie theaters, festivals and the many more everyday needed trips by our modern cars.
Classic Ford Cars:
1908 Model T
1928 Model A
1934 Deuce Coupe
1936 Model 68 Deluxe
1940 2 DR Coupe
1949 2 DR Coupe Convertible
1951 Victoria 2 DR Hardtop
1952 New Victoria Hardtop
1954 Crestline Victoria W/239 cu. in. Overhead Valve Engine
1955 Crown Victoria
1955 New Thunderbird 2-Seat w/292 cu. in. Engine
1957 Fairlane 500 2 DR Hardtop
1964½ Ford Mustang - sold 680,989 through 1965
Today Ford only produces two cars, and one is the Mustang. All other Ford automobiles produced are SUVs and pickup trucks.
Henry Ford’s idea of producing cars for America has actually been one of the largest factors in building the best country in mankind’s history in which we have been blessed to live. Let’s not let factions tear it apart.
Time to hear some Ned Miller songs.