Ford Motor Plant from an Aeroplane (HS85-10-37671)

Ford City was a community in the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, located within the municipal boundaries of

Windsor Windsor may refer to: Places Australia * Windsor, New South Wales ** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area * Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland **Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...

. The community was founded by 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 ...

in the early 1900s as a separate

company town A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...

where Ford had a big plant at the corner of Riverside Drive and Drouillard Road, which at one point employed 14,000 people. The boundaries east to west were Pillette Avenue to Walker Road, and the north and south boundaries were Riverside Drive to Grand Marais Boulevard. Ford City's downtown main street was Drouillard Avenue, named after François Drouillard (an early settler who owned a farm along the general location of the street, which evolved from a private path on his property). The last remaining building of Ford is the engine plant. The town was sparsely-populated and mostly farmland until the Walkerville Wagon Works partnered with

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 ...

(the namesake of the town) to build and import automobiles to Canada at a lower tariff rate by having the

provide them with the incomplete automobiles and their parts, with Walkerville Wagon Works performing final assembly for domestic (Canadian) purchase. This partnership was

Ford Motor Company of Canada Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited (French: ''Ford du Canada Limitée'') was founded on August 17, 1904, for the purpose of manufacturing and selling Ford automobiles in Canada and the British Empire. It was originally known as the Walkerville W ...

, and by 1910, it would move to an even bigger facility in Ford City. By 1913, the community was incorporated as a village with Charles Montreuil as its first mayor, reaching town status just two years later. In 1928, the town legally changed its name to East Windsor and incorporated itself as a city in 1929, though the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

took its toll on the community. With the town facing bankruptcy in 1935, Ford City was merged into the City of Windsor by the provincial government, along with the towns of

Sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...

and Walkerville. The community of Ford City first made national headlines on August 22, 1917, when hundreds of

French Canadian French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fren ...

parishioners mourning the death of their nationalist pastor, Fr. Lucien Alexandre Beaudoin, formed a blockade refusing to admit their newly appointed priest, Fr. François Xavier Laurendeau, on the pretext that they believed he was in favour of the provincial school policy, Regulation XVII, which had severely restricted the use of French in the area`s bilingual schools. For more than two weeks, the parishioners mounted an around the clock blockade refusing the priest`s admission to the parish grounds and residence. On September 3, the Catholic Bishop of London, Michael Francis Fallon, sent the parishioners an ultimatum: accept the new priest or face the closure of the church. The warning failed to produce any results. On Saturday, September 8, 1917, Fr. Laurendeau returned to the parish with a police escort of 12 constables. The protesters, who were tipped off by a phone call of their pastor`s impending return, rang the church bells, and the grounds were soon occupied by more than 3000 parishioners. When Laurendeau and his police escort arrived they faced a sizeable blockade. The police escort pulled out their billy clubs to make their path through the crowd. Amid the pushing, shoving and shouting, someone threw the first blow and a full-scale riot broke out. Through a shower of bricks, rocks, fists, brooms and clubs, the constables managed to reach the church residence. The mayor, Albert Maisonville was forced to read the Riot Act and call upon the military for back up. When the riot finally settled down, nine men had been arrested, and nine people had been seriously injured, including two elderly women who fiercely resisted the policy on the front steps of the church rectory with broomsticks. For more than a year, the parishioners boycotted masses celebrated by Laurendeau and appealed to

Pope Benedict XV Pope Benedict XV (Latin: ''Benedictus XV''; it, Benedetto XV), born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, name=, group= (; 21 November 185422 January 1922), was head of the Catholic Church from 1914 until his death in January 1922. His ...

to replace him. In October 1918, the Vatican ordered the parishioners to accept the new pastor under pain of

excommunication Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...

, ending the boycott. These events came to represent the culmination of the French-speaking community`s resistance to Bishop Fallon and his vocal support of the Ontario Government`s imposition of Regulation 17. The area is also famous for the historic 99-day 1945 Ford Strike during which the workers fought to be unionized, and set up a blockade around the plant. The Rand Formula was created at the end of the strike where workers would have to pay union dues for having a union in their workplaces, which set the standard for all unions in Canada. Ford left Windsor for Oakville in 1953, closing the Riverside Drive plant by 1960 and leaving thousands unemployed as only the casting and engine plants remained.

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