MUSCLE SHOALS, Alabama - In 1921, Henry Ford dreamed a dream that he could turn a sleepy Alabama town into a Southern mecca.
His plan included buying the unfinished Wilson Dam and two nitrate plants, which at the time the U.S. government was willing to sell to a private company, to produce nitrate fertilizer, sparking the idea that Ford would do for northern Alabama what he did for Detroit with auto-making. He announced a plan to build a city that would encompass 75 miles of North Alabama.
Eventually, Ford's dream died, but it would be resurrected by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 when he created the Tennessee Valley Authority as part of his New Deal to operate Wilson Dam and other power-producing facilities in seven states.
In 1921, Ford's idea was so titillating that people flocked to the town from across the country and The New York Times followed the plan with a series of articles. A Feb. 12, 1922, article in The New York Times called "Rush for Muscle Shoals" began with this sentence: "The dream city reared suddenly at Muscle Shoals by Henry Ford somewhat after the fashion of Aladdin with his wonderful lamp is already being peopled."
So great was the anticipation, speculators began buying land to create subdivisions and sidewalks were installed, the remnants of which can still be seen today, and orchards and farms were being planted in South Alabama to feed the teeming populace expected to arrive in North Alabama.
"There are a few things left you can still see from that boom development," said Ninon Parker, marketing director for the Colbert County Tourism and Convention Bureau. "There are a couple of houses, some curbing and fireplugs that once ran straight through cotton fields, and the old Howell and Graves School. There was quite a push for people to come here."
A historical marker in Muscle Shoals states the school was named for two of the more prominent developers who were riding the coattails of Ford's promise: "A.L. Howell and C.T. Graves and other developers bought nearby cotton fields and laid out subdivisions, complete with streets, sidewalks, fireplugs and street lights...The Howell and Graves Junior High School opened in 1927."
This building is used today as offices for the Muscles Shoals School System.
The dream
Ford's dream began when he and his friend Thomas Edison visited North Alabama in 1921, Muscle Shoals historian Debbie Bradford said.
"Ford said, 'I will employ 1 million workers at Muscle Shoals and I will build a city 75 miles long at Muscle Shoals,'" Bradford said.
Construction on Wilson Dam and two nitrate facilities began at the tail-end of World War I for munitions manufacturing, but President Warren G. Harding halted work after the war and offered the facilities for sale or lease.
Ford placed his offer to the government: $5 million to lease Wilson Dam, a project in which the government already invested more than $46 million.
Some members of Congress got wind of the offer, in particular Sen. George Norris of Nebraska, and began a fight to keep the dam as a federal property. In the meantime, other entities, including Alabama Power, placed bids on the dam.
In 1924, Ford tired of the fight and withdrew his offer, causing an outcry by locals who felt the federal government had ruined their futures.
Author Jack Neely writes on the TVA website: "Norris received death threats from angry people in the Valley who believed Ford had been about to make them rich. On his first trip to Muscle Shoals, he was accompanied by an armed bodyguard."
In 1926, Norris introduced a bill that not only outlined a plan for the federal government to complete and operate Wilson Dam, but to build more dams along the Tennessee River. The bill stalled under two administrations but the seeds of his idea would eventually grow to become what is now TVA, a federally owned non-profit corporation that is the nation's largest public power provider.