General Motors’ Janesville Assembly Plant to Be Demolished Just Shy of Turning 100
With its first vehicle built on May 1, 1919, General Motors’ Janseville, WI assembly plant was the company’s oldest operating plant when vehicle production was ceased in late 2008. Once employing at least 7,000 people, there were just 1,200 employees when the plant was shut down. This facility was first inaugurated as the assembly plant for the Samson Tractor Division of General Motors. After a farm depression started in 1920, the Samson brand went bankrupt and the plant ceased production. General Motors wanted to abandon the plant right then, but the plant’s general manager Joseph A. Craig convinced General Motors to continue using the plant.
Soon after Samson went bankrupt General Motors moved truck production from Flint, MI to Janesville. In 1923, the Chevrolet division of General Motors began producing cars in the Janesville plant. Then, during the Great Depression production was stopped for a year, and then during World War II the Oldsmobile division took over the plant to produce artillery. Eventually, Janesville began producing full-size and sub-compact cars such as the Chevrolet Caprice and Chevrolet Cavalier. Though General Motors pickup production was moved to Fort Wayne, IN in 1987, Janesville began building SUVs and medium-duty trucks and eventually became the only General Motors plant producing large SUVs. Until production ceased and the plant was decommissioned in 2009, Janesville continued to produce medium-duty SUVs and Isuzu trucks. The last vehicle off the assembly line was a Chevrolet Tahoe.
The Janesville facility covers over 4.8 million square feet. When it was decommissioned following General Motors’ bankruptcy in 2009, the Janesville plant was kept on standby and the company did not sell it. Perhaps those at General Motors were hopeful to return production to the facility, or perhaps not. Whatever the case, the factory sat idle for 10 years and only recently came up for sale in December 2017. At that time, Commercial Development Company of St. Louis purchased it for $9.6 million dollars as well as the 265-acre property it resides on. Despite the tremendous history behind this building, progress waits for no one and with minimal use for the factory as it is, Commercial Development Company has elected to demolish most of if not all of the Janesville production facility to make way for redevelopment of the site it occupies. Though the Commercial Development Company’s CEO stated that the company tried to find a way to preserve the structure, according to The Detroit Bureau as of this week demolition equipment has moved onto the site. The plant would be 100 years old next year.
Sources: Hemmings, FourWheeler Network & Wikipedia
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