Edward George Kingsford (March 1, 1862 – July 19, 1943) was an American timber cruiser, real estate developer, and automotive executive, who became the authorized representative for the

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...

and developed the Ford factory in what would later become

Kingsford, Michigan Kingsford is a city in Dickinson County in the U.S. state of Michigan, named for the developer Edward G. Kingsford. The population was 5,139 at the 2020 census, a slight increase from the 5,133 recorded at the 2010 census. It is part of the I ...

; the town is named for Kingsford. Kingsford was born on March 1, 1862 in

Woodstock, Ontario Woodstock is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. The city has a population of 40,902 according to the 2016 Canadian census. Woodstock is the seat of Oxford County, at the head of the non-navigable Thames River, approximately 128 km from ...

. He was invited by

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...

in 1919 to a camping trip in the

Upper Peninsula of Michigan The Upper Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. – is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by t ...

along with

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...

Harvey Firestone Harvey Samuel Firestone (December 20, 1868 – February 7, 1938) was an American businessman, and the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, one of the first global makers of automobile tires. Family background Firestone was born o ...

and

John Burroughs John Burroughs (April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921) was an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the conservation movement in the United States. The first of his essay collections was ''Wake-Robin'' in 1871. In the words of his bio ...

. Ford wanted to produce timber for his operations; a

Ford Model T The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relati ...

used about 100

board feet The board foot or board-foot is a unit of measurement for the volume of lumber in the United States and Canada. It equals the volume of a length of a board, one foot wide and thick. Board foot can be abbreviated as FBM (for "foot, board measure" ...

of hardwood. In August 1920, he became the vice-president of the Michigan Iron, Land and Lumber Company, organized to carry out the operation of a sawmill and auto body plant. The company was absorbed into Ford in 1923, and Kingsford carried on as general manager for Ford. Ford was upset by wasted wood by-products at the plant, and Edison designed an adjacent factory to turn the sawdust and wood scrap from the lumber mill into

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...

briquets. An adjacent community was planned by Ford Motor, named for Kingsford and incorporated as a village in 1924; it was later reincorporated as a city in 1947. Ford Charcoal was later purchased in 1951 and renamed Kingsford. Kingsford's spouse from April 8, 1890, was Mary Minnie Frances Flaherty (December 5, 1865 – May 8, 1943), who was a first cousin to

. They had two sons and a daughter. Kingsford died in

Iron Mountain, Michigan Iron Mountain is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 7,518 at the 2020 census, down from 7,624 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Dickinson County, in the state's Upper Peninsula. Iron Mountain was named for the va ...

on July 19, 1943.

References

External links

Portrait of Kingsford at the Henry Ford Museum

Kingsford Charcoal company history
American real estate businesspeople People from Woodstock, Ontario People from Dickinson County, Michigan 1862 births 1943 deaths {{US-business-bio-1860s-stub