Ford Motor started making cars in Louisville in 1913 with 11 employees, a decade after Henry Ford founded the company in a converted factory in Detroit with $28,000 in cash from a dozen investors. Within a decade, the company would lead the world in the expansion and refinement of the assembly line concept, according to Wikipedia.
More than a century later, Ford has two major operations here in the Louisville area.
The first is the Louisville Assembly Plant, which opened in 1955 and now employs 4,700. It makes Ford Escapes and Lincoln MKCs at 2000 Fern Valley Road, south of Louisville International Airport.
The second is the Kentucky Truck Factory. Ford opened it in 1969 and now employs about 5,100 workers there, producing F-250 and F-550 Super Duty pickups, plus Expeditions, and Lincoln Navigators. It’s at 3001 Chamberlain Lane in northeastern Louisville.
But Ford is expanding the track factory substantially. In December 2015, it announced plans to spend $1.3 billion and add 2,000 more jobs to make the new F-series Super Duty trucks.
The company is headquartered in Dearborn, Mich. The Ford family is still a major shareholder, and William Clay Ford is the company’s executive chairman.
Some key Ford links:
- Ford shares
- investor relations
- board of directors
- top officers
- Boulevard’s executive compensation database
Photo, top: University of Louisville Photographic Archives.
Boulevard 