Our Past Is Present October 23, 2018

October 23, 2018

            This is “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.

            Well, last Tuesday we told you that today’s story would continue with a connection between the Willys-Overland Company of Toledo, Ohio and the City Theater.  Remember the Opera House name had been changed to the City Theater in 1919 even though some still called the building the Opera House. The information comes from a January 25, 1919 article titled “Lyman Howe’s Pictures Show Motor Car Construction In Big Factory”. 

The author of the article stated that “The American manufacturing methods have probably reached their highest development of efficiency in the huge factories where automobiles are made.  For this reason, the views of the immense plant of the Willy’s-Overland Company in Toledo, Ohio is said to be the largest automobile factory in the world.

            The pictures shown follow the making of an automobile from the time the raw material enters the forges as bar steel, to be formed into crankshafts and piston rods by immense drop hammers, to the time the finished car leaves the factory under its own power for the final test.

            The time and labor saving machinery employed and the marvelous efficiency achieved in the handling and routing of material is clearly shown in these pictures. The pictures show the various car parts in process of being manufactured and the employment of some of the most modern factory in use ending in the department where the final assembly is made on traveling chain belts. 

            This picture, starting with the bare skeleton of a car frame that grows as it moves into a finished automobile and is probably the best exposition of modern factory efficiency that it would be possible to secure,” according to the reporter. 

            And… that’s today’s story on “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.