Ford Motor Company Assembly Plant

Built on reclaimed bayfront land beside the Santa Fe Channel in Richmond, California, this Ford assembly plant was designed by Albert Kahn and dedicated in 1931. The main building holds about 496,000 square feet under one roof, with a two-story section, a single-story section, a craneway, a boiler house and a rail shed canopy. Steel windows and sawtooth skylights light the interior, and the craneway extends onto a pile-supported dock where finished vehicles could be loaded onto ships or trains. A detached oil house also contributes. The plant was the largest Ford assembly facility on the West Coast and the only Kahn-designed building in the Bay Area. During the Depression it supplied Ford vehicles across the western states and supported a large local payroll. In 1942 it became a tank depot that processed military vehicles for shipment overseas. Car assembly ended in 1953 and the plant closed in the mid-1950s. A later warehouse, guard house and tugboat building do not contribute.