Fruehauf Trailer Plant Article – October 1945

Seventy-four years ago this month, the Fruehauf Trailer Company made the front page of the Lorain Journal on October 31, 1945. The article noted, “Ground is to be broken immediately in Avon Lake for a $4,500,000 truck-trailer manufacturing plant for the Fruehauf Trailer Co., Detroit.

“This was learned today following announcement of the company’s plans last night by Harvey C. Fruehauf, president, at a meeting in Cleveland.

“The plant, to go up at the intersection of Walker and Miller roads, eight miles east of Lorain, will be the largest in the world engaged in the manufacture of truck-trailers and will employ 2,500 men.

“We hope to start turning out Fruehauf trailers in the Avon Lake plant next summer, the head of the company said, tho the building schedule reported in an official announcement sets the completion date for construction as next August.”

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Today the plant is known as the Ford Ohio Assembly Plant. According to the UAW Local 2000 website, "The facility was originally built in 1946 by the Fruehauf Company and was utilized to build over-the-road trailers until 1972 when it was purchased by Ford Motor Company. At that time the plant consisted of 1,000,000 square feet under one roof on 242 acres. With three smaller expansions in the 1970's and 1980's and with the expansion associated with the 1992 Ford Econoline and the 1993 Mercury Villager and Nissan Quest, the plant has now grown to 3.7 million square feet on 419 acres.”

To learn more about the Fruehauf Trailer story, visit the website of the Fruehauf Trailer Historical Society.

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The Fruehauf plant had a minor role in my family’s history. Years before Mom worked at U. S. Steel in Lorain, she worked in the office at Fruehauf in Avon Lake. She was bowling on a Fruehauf league when she met Dad (who was bowling for the 333 Bar) at the bowling alley formerly located in the shopping center on Lake Road in Avon Lake (Stop 65).