Today’s entry is for Paul, who recently asked for more information about the old Plant no. 1. Plant 1 stood at the n.e. corner of Tecumseh & McDougall. The site now occupied by a shopping plaza. Plant 1 was originally the plant of the Maxwell-Chalmers Motor Car Co. and was built c. 1920.
Maxwell – Chalmers became the Chrysler Corporation in 1925. The plant on Tecumseh Rd was expanded in 1927, and again in 1928. The plant eventually became a truck plant and was closed in 1978. By the time I came to Windsor it was a vacant lot. If you look along the Tecumseh Road frontage of the shopping plaza, you’ll notice that there are still the 1920’s era vintage street lamps in place.
From the WPL Digital Project “Some Assembly Required”. Photo c. 1920
Photo from the book “Pioneering The Auto Age” by Carl Morgan & Herb Colling. Photo c. 1950
A copy of the 1937 Fire Insurance Map.
This aerial photo above dates to 1961. The plant is kind of cut off, but is on this photo from DTE Energy.
I like the ghosts of those train tracks that you can still if you head north from the plant er plaza. All those curved fences and such.
I remember sitting in French class at Kennedy Collegiate watching them tear the old girl down. Then again what hasn’t Windsor torn down?
thanks
wasnt there a plant at howard and tecumseh where the medical buildings are now?
or could you found any info on where the old kelsey hayes building is or where it was thanks again
Paul Howard & Tecumseh where the Medical Centre is was the home of “Auto Specialites Manufacturing Co.” They were a malleable iron works/foundry. They obviously made Automotive parts.
Kelsey Hayes, is on Howard and is now Veltri Metal Products, just south of Windsor Grove Cemetery.
And honorable mention to long gone Toledo Scale which is now the home of the Ziter ofice building on Howard bounded by Lens and Memorial.
Shawn,
On those ghost tracks, it appears that there was, at one time, a whole section of the ETR that brach off from some point in S.Walkerville and ran west to Plant 1 then north a little. Would there be any r.o.w. remainingfrom this branch, or, all in private hands today I wonder..?
I would guess that it’s all in private hands. From what I understand, on those short lines, like the ETR, the spurs onto the property belonged to the plant or factory. As the factories closed/stopped shipping by rail, they usually removed the tracks. I don’t think there are any r.o.w. issues.
The old Plant 1 was re-opened in the eighties when Chrysler began building the two-door Imperial coupe at plant 3, now the minivan plant. I think the old truck plant was used to test the quality of the Imperial before it left Windsor. When Chrysler discontinued the Imperial name to make room for the minivan, Plant 1 was torn down and the property sold to N & D, who had planned to build a new supermarket on the land. Unfortunately, N & D ran into financial trouble soon after it bought the property and it remained vacant until Mady Development lured Price Chopper to Windsor in the late nineties.