Old Ford automobile assembly plant - Milpitas, CA
Posted by: 
ucdvicky
N 37° 24.858 W 121° 53.976
10S E 597377 N 4141401
Old Ford plant which is now a mall.
Waymark Code: WM2TPD
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 12/21/2007
Views: 176
"In 1952, Ford Motor Corporation decided to relocate its northern California assembly plant from Richmond, where it had outgrown the available site, to Milpitas. At the time, Milpitas was unincorporated county land to the northeast of San José. The company purchased about 120 acres from the Wrigley family, of chewing gum fame, who owned ranch land all over the state. Since the closest city to the plant was San José, Ford called their new plant the San Jose Ford Assembly Plant.
Our city formed as a defensive incorporation in 1954 to keep from being swallowed up by a growing San José. In about 1960, an election was held to determine whether young Milpitas would join with the expanding San José. The local activists in favor of remaining independent of the larger city to the south saw themselves as fighting off a behemoth. Because they thought of their campaign against incorporation into San José as the same kind of fight for independence that our forefathers waged in the Revolutionary War against the British, they made their symbol the minuteman and following their overwhelmingly lopsided victory in the election, they made the image of the famous minuteman statue part of the official city seal." (
visit link)
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