Friday, December 19, 2008

The Rise and Fall of GM at Moraine

Moraine Assembly starts to close this Saturday and will shut down, department by department, during next week, with the last vehicle rolling off the line on the 23rd. The place will be closed for good by Christmas Eve.

Here's a look at the rise and fall of industry at Moraine, via some diagrammatic maps.

As we've seen the first plant was the Delco-Light plant, later converted to warplane production by Dayton-Wright.


After Dayton-Wright closed the plant, or a part of it, was used as a research lab by Delco. But in 1926 the plant was substantially enlarged and rebuilt to produce refrigerators. Frigidaire would produce appliances here unitl the 1970s.


In the 1940s the plant was unionized by the UE. The UE local would affiliate with the IUE in the late 1940s.

Postwar expansion....


In 1979 GM sold Frigidaire but kept the plant, which was retooled and expanded to produce vehicles, starting with the Chevy Blazer in 1981. A Delco (later Delphi) was also built.

In the 1990s a paint shop was added, and an engine plant, which was a joint-venture with a Japanese company.



The Moraine complex at the largest extent (though one starts to see removals, too)


The complex undergoes partial demolition during the 2000's


And finally closed in 2008. The joint-venture engine plant remains open, though.


1 comment:

Woodrowfan said...

Damn, I didn't realize that the buildings where my Dad worked, including the offices where I visited him, were torn down a few years ago.

I have a small piece of the wood floor from the building where I worked longest (I picked it up during the changeover from appliances to trucks when the plant was gutted) I thought it was part of the older section. Turns out it from a building built in the 1950s. oh well.