Qualla: Willow Run

Willow Run: Introduction

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Howard R. Hollem, Public domain. By 1944, a finished B-24 Liberator heavy bomber rolled off the assembly line at Willow Run every 63 minutes, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The 3.5-million-square-foot factory -- thought to be the largest building under one roof anywhere in the world -- had an aircraft assembly line stretching over a mile. It was designed by the great industrial architect Albert Kahn and built by Ford Motor Company on former farmland between Ypsilanti Township and Belleville, Michigan. The story of Willow Run is a story of American industrial might turned to desperate purpose: an automobile company that had to learn, painfully and publicly, how to build airplanes, and a workforce of 42,500 people who remade themselves into the arsenal of democracy.

Read more: Willow Run on Qualla

Image: Howard R. Hollem | Public domain

Willow Run: From Boys' Camp to Bomber Plant

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. The name Willow Run comes from a small tributary of the Huron River that once meandered through pastureland along the Wayne-Washtenaw county line. Henry Ford bought the land in 1931 from a family called Quirk Farms and turned it into a social experiment: Camp Willow Run, where in...

Read more: Willow Run on Qualla

Image: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided | Public domain

Willow Run: Learning to Build Bombers

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. When construction began in April 1941, Ford had not built an airplane since the Trimotor of the 1920s. The company was initially assigned to produce B-24 components, with Consolidated Aircraft and Douglas Aircraft handling final assembly. Remote assembly proved a disaster, and by...

Read more: Willow Run on Qualla

Image: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided | Public domain

Willow Run: One Bomber Every Hour

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. The bugs were eventually worked out. At its peak in April 1944, Willow Run produced 428 B-24s in a single month, with the record run of 100 completed bombers flying away between April 24 and 26. By 1945, Ford was building 70 percent of all B-24s in two nine-hour shifts. When the ...

Read more: Willow Run on Qualla

Image: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided | Public domain

Willow Run: The Housing Crisis That Built a Community

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mr.choppers, CC BY-SA 3.0. A factory of 42,500 workers in the rural Michigan countryside created an instant housing emergency. Workers drove 100 miles or rented every spare room between Ann Arbor and Grosse Pointe. The Federal Public Housing Administration stepped in, building Willow Run Lodge -- fifteen d...

Read more: Willow Run on Qualla

Image: Mr.choppers | CC BY-SA 3.0

Willow Run: Reinvention After Reinvention

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dwight Burdette, CC BY 3.0. Ford declined to buy the plant after the war. Kaiser-Frazer moved in, producing 739,000 automobiles between 1947 and 1953, along with 88 C-119 Flying Boxcar cargo planes during the Korean War. When a 1953 fire destroyed GM's transmission factory in Livonia, the salvaged machinery...

Read more: Willow Run on Qualla

Image: Dwight Burdette | CC BY 3.0