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Subject: Re: [MIJACKSO] Airport Jackson Michigan
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 01:54:30 EDT
To those of you who might be interested I will share a story that some of you
may or may not know in regard to Reynolds Field.
It was told to me by a teacher I had in either grade or high school. Seems
the Buick Motor Company was wanting very much to build a plant in Jackson. A
large track of land was chosen. Unfortunately the City Fathers of Jackson
were totally against the idea of having a dirty, large factory located in
Jackson. And so the Reynolds family purchased the track of land that Buick I
had chosen for it's plant location.
Who the, "City Fathers" are, your guess is as good as mine. However, Jackson
at the time certainly was not without scores of dirty little factories, which
of course were privately owned by families, many related by marriage. So it
seems the real reason for keeping Buick out of Jackson could have been the
fear of a labor shortage which would force the hourly labor rate to climb.
I think if one looks around in Jackson, it is not too difficult to guess at
who some of the families were that did not want Buick to locate a plant in
midst of their little industrial empire.
If Buick had built a plant in Jackson, would Jackson not find itself to be as
Flint is today?
Chas in Florida
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