I just bought a vehicle made in St. Paul, MN.
I checked the VIN number for place of manufacture. See, there used to be a Ford factory here. It got started building Model T cars, and got shut down a few years ago after building many, many Ford Rangers. Now, the property is being re-developed for mixed uses.
So, my 1996 Red Ford Ranger joins our 2020 KIA Soul in our driveway. It has an undefined number of miles on it, since the speedometer and the entire dash display was replaced several years ago and the odometer isn't accurate. This car is a rescue. It's been sitting for six months after its owner died. His widow sold it to me, with the help of her son. While we were waiting for our number to come up at the DMV, she said, "I'm going to take this money and pay for my husband's marker in the cemetery with it."
The closing of the Ford Factory in St. Paul was pretty much the end of that city's history of manufacturing. Along with the Ford Ranger assembly line, there was even a glass factory on the site, making use of ideal silica sand mined under the factory. The plant was powered by a hydroelectric plant driven by the Mississippi River.
It's closing put many assembly line workers and others out of a job, but their numbers had declined in any case, as Ford was building Rangers in other places, including Mexico. No new manufacturing jobs were created to re-employ those assembly line workers, some of whom had a family history of working at the Ford Factory for four generations.
So, my beater pickup truck is part of a long bit of history that is no more. 23 years old now, it's a little wheezy and a lot creaky in its joints. Surprisingly, it's not all that rusty, though, and will handle the work of cleaning up around the place just fine.
I'm going to call it "St. Paul Red," in honor of its heritage here. The city I live in will never be a manufacturing city again. This entire country isn't as much of a manufacturing country We are in transition.
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please be careful with that Ranger in the snow/ice... I had a 1996 and totaled it on Vermont roads (black ice) and my son (new driver) totaled the new one we got to replace the 1st one ...on a washboard back road...
