A couple of years ago I was dating a woman who lived in Saginaw (a part of town I'd never really been to before) and just north of Loop 820 in front of Saginaw City Hall I found a very old, dilapidated building that was literally groaning under its own weight and appeared to be looking for a place to fall down. It appeared to be an old airfield of some sort. The hangars were caving in, grass grew up between the cracks of just about every chunk of pavement, and almost every window was broken out. In other words, it was a real mess. There was a standing water tower painted with a red-and-black checkerboard pattern. It looked like an old military air field, but I had grown up in Fort Worth and knew nothing about this place. Looked like it had been closed and abandoned for decades. My date had no idea what the place was. It was all fenced off, with a couple of old military-looking vehicles sitting in there.
I asked some friends if they had any idea of the identity of this very old airfield and one of them, a veteran, said it could have been a satellite airfield of Carswell Air Force Base. Seemed practical to keep some of your valuable airplanes just off site, so an enemy bomb couldn't take them all out in one shot. Also provided a place to train new pilots. He said military airfields often had their water towers painted with just such a red/black checkerboard pattern. This was the best guess, as I could figure.
Then I happened to learn that it was the old Globe Aircraft Factory. I'd never heard of this airplane manufacturer until this point. They made some popular airplanes but were bought up in the late '40s/early '50s or so, and the place seems to have been abandoned since then.
At the time I saw the old buildings, they were still in place. Doing some Internet searching has revealed that apparently these old hangars have since been demolished and removed, but the water tower and a security building are still there. The flagpole had a concrete base with some sort of marker commemmorating the old Globe factory (I never saw this, as I did not know about it, and don't know if it's visible from the road).
Does anyone here have any information on this place? Precise dates on closing, interesting things that happened there, etc.? And why has nothing been done with the property after all these years?
Globe Aircraft history
Started by Giraffe, Sep 19 2008 08:46 PM
4 replies to this topic
#1
Posted 19 September 2008 - 08:46 PM
#2
Posted 19 September 2008 - 09:10 PM
Cool story, I have passed by the site but like you never knew the story.
Here are some of the first sites that came up on a google search:
Some general info about the plane produced in Saginaw up until 1951
http://www.pilotfrie.....obe swift.htm
Someone's photo of the dilapidated plant on Flicker
http://www.flickr.co...rns/2167560607/
Another historical site
http://www.napanet.n...swift/histo.htm
A forum dedicated to the Swift airplane
http://www.tailwheel...hp?showforum=11
The wikipedia site
http://en.wikipedia....iki/Globe_Swift
Here are some of the first sites that came up on a google search:
Some general info about the plane produced in Saginaw up until 1951
http://www.pilotfrie.....obe swift.htm
Someone's photo of the dilapidated plant on Flicker
http://www.flickr.co...rns/2167560607/
Another historical site
http://www.napanet.n...swift/histo.htm
A forum dedicated to the Swift airplane
http://www.tailwheel...hp?showforum=11
The wikipedia site
http://en.wikipedia....iki/Globe_Swift
#3
Posted 22 September 2008 - 07:57 AM
Another good site with info(I didnt look at the previous posters links yet, so not sure how much information is duplicated or not):
http://members.tripo...th_N.html#globe
http://members.tripo...th_N.html#globe
-Doug
#4
Posted 01 October 2008 - 01:27 PM
My dad worked at the Globe Plant several times during his career as a painter for Bell Helicopter. He was there when they shut down opperations, sometime in the 80's or 90's, I think. He always knew that working at the Globe Plant meant he would be working the night shift and it was usually the last plant he would work in before the ever present layoffs began. Needless to say, he didn't care for the place.
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#5
Posted 15 October 2008 - 06:22 PM
That is an amazing history! Thanks for the information.
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