Construction at Ford Motor Company Hydroelectric Station, Saline, Michigan, August 1936

In the early 1920s, Henry Ford began locating small hydroelectrically powered plants in rural southeast Michigan. These "Village Industries" employed local people who could maintain farms while working at the factory. One plant, constructed in Saline in the mid-1930s, operated until 1947. During World War II, workers here processed soybean oil for paints and plastics and machined parts for Pratt & Whitney engines.