Barge Being Loaded with Lumber at Rouge Plant, Dearborn, Michigan, November 14, 1939

Henry Ford purchased 199 surplus World War I merchant ships from the United States government in 1925. Most of these ships were scrapped and the materials were used at Ford's new automobile manufacturing complex on the Rouge River. But 13 were converted into barges, like the Lake Freeland. These barges transported products and material as part of Ford's operation.