Posted on Monday, January 22, 2007 - 8:51 pm:

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In the fall 1917, U.S. Secretary of War Newton Baker searched for an American manufacturer to produce delicate recoil mechanisms for two French heavy artillery pieces, the 155-millimeter Schneider howitzer and the 155-millimeter Filloux general purpose field gun. French manufacturers, using highly skilled hand craftsmen, produced a total of only five per day. No one had ever manufactured these delicate recoil mechanisms, also known as hydropneumatic recuperators, outside France. According to Benedict Crowell [Assistant Sec of War], "It is scarcely fair to a modern hydropneumatic recuperator to say that it must be finished with the precision of a watch. It must be finished with a mechanical nicety comparable only to the finish of such a delicate instrument as a navigator's sextant or the mechanism that adjusts the Lick telescope to the movement of the Earth." Moffett [author of an article about the contract] claimed that the Germans captured many of these French guns but were never able to make them in their own factories because they could not duplicate the recoil mechanisms.














John Dodge met in Washington, D.C., with Secretary of War Baker and a delegation of French manufacturers, who offered to send their skilled machinists to Detroit to teach the Dodges how to make the device. John Dodge replied in angry and earthy language that he and Horace needed only blueprints to begin machine production. According to Dodge family lore, Secretary Baker responded, “Look here, Mr. Dodge, I’m not accustomed to being spoken to in that kind of language.” John Dodge replied, “The war would be a hell of a lot better off if you were!” John Dodge offered to build and equip the munitions plant and supply fifty of the mechanisms per day, beginning four months later. Dodge Brothers would do the work at cost plus 10 percent, provided the U.S. government would agree not to interfere with their efforts. On 27 October 1917, Baker accepted the Dodges’ offer.

The Dodge Brothers contract with the U.S. government reveals the details of the arrangement. Dodge Brothers agreed to make 3,120 recoil mechanisms for the 155-millimeter Schneider howitzer and 1,424 recoil mechanisms for the 155-millimeter Filloux general purpose field gun. They were to follow the drawings and specifications attached to the contract…The contract specified that Dodge Brothers should build a factory of about 500,000 square feet costing no more than $1,500,000 and buy and install the necessary machinery and tools at an additional cost of no more than $2,000,000. In both cases, the government would pay the Dodges their actual costs, plus 10 percent…The contract called for deliveries to begin on 1 March1918 and end by 1 November 1918. Deliveries were to start at a modest level of 103 units in March, but then reach a peak of 828 units in July. Working six days a week, peak production would reach about thirty-five units a day, not the fifty originally promised by Dodge Brothers.

Within a day of signing the agreement, construction workers began to prepare the factory site in Detroit on Lynch Road, east of Mount Elliot Avenue. Water, sewer, and electric lines reached the site in a matter of days, and within a week of the contract, structural steel began arriving. The concrete foundations were in place within a month, and 1,800 men were at work on the 578 feet by 818 feet factory. The first machines began working at the start of March 1918. The Detroit architectural firm of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls Associates designed the original buildings and later additions. The SH&G engineers also produced drawings for some parts of the 155-millimeter guns. On 19 November 1917, SH&G gave Dodge Brothers an initial estimate of the cost of the manufacturing building and powerhouse, including boilers and cranes, amounting to $1,378,767. Wartime inflation, however, nearly tripled the original contract price of $3.5 million for the plant and equipment to $10 million.

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The ordnance plant later became the site for key manufacturing operations for Dodge Brothers and later for the Chrysler Corporation. Dodge Brothers initially offered to buy the plant and much of the machinery from the U.S. government in June 1919 for $1,619,643 and bought the plant a year later for $1,400,000. Two decades later, Fred Lamborn, who had worked at the ordnance plant, recalled that Dodge Brothers got the property for about 30 percent of its original cost. The U.S. government shipped the machinery and finished recoil mechanisms to its Rock Island arsenal for storage there in June 1940. Graham Brothers Company and then Dodge Brothers, Inc., used the buildings, found south of Lynch Road and east of the Plymouth Lynch Road Assembly Plant (built 1928), to assemble trucks until 1938 and then for axle manufacturing.










On 7 November 1921, long after the end of the First World War and the deaths of John and Horace Dodge, Marshall Ferdinand Foch visited the Dodge Brothers factory in Hamtramck and paid tribute to the Dodge brother’s contribution to the war effort. His visit to Detroit was brief and the Dodge Brothers factory was the only auto plant he visited.

Posted on Sunday, March 11, 2007 - 4:33 pm:

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Question: Have you ever heard of Watson-Rose Truck Manufacturing? It was active in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Don’t know that much about it yet except that it was on 12400 Strathmoor before Fullerton.

Great uncle of mine owned it. He was an engineer at ford and then left to open this manufacturing plant (?). Have you ever heard of it? I believe was by the Chrysler Jeep & Truck plant on Plymouth rd. Any information would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you
Tracey In Lansing