GM Fairfax Investment..

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GM Fairfax Investment..

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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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interesting that the two kansas senators voted against TARP, which was used to bail out GM. without that bailout, this investment would never have happened. one of those senators will likely be governor...
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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GM will keep Fairfax plant open through traditional summer shutdown to meet demand for increased sales of Buick LaCrosse and Chevy Malibus.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/s ... a=e_du_pap
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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GM supplier Flex-N-Gate rents space near Chouteau Trafficway in East Bottoms.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... a=e_du_pub
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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Does anyone beside me remember the old Fairfax airport that was torn down to build the GM plant?  Lovely building.  There was a lot of aircraft industry in KCK at one time. 
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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mlind wrote: Does anyone beside me remember the old Fairfax airport that was torn down to build the GM plant?  Lovely building.  There was a lot of aircraft industry in KCK at one time. 
Wasn't that mostly in WWII though?  I think the Fairfax plant built the B-25 and had 50,000 employees (that's astounding). The B-25 was used in the Doolittle raid on Tokyo.  KCMO had the Pratt Whitney plant which built aircraft engines.  That plant was known as a model of inefficiency in the US war machine but still was one of the big factors pushing the KCMO population further to the south.  After the war, the Fairfax plant reverted back to civilian use and Pratt Whitney closed down soon after.  After the TWA-American overhaul based close, Honeywell in Olathe is probably the biggest aircraft related industry in KC and they make only avionics.   
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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Highlander wrote: Wasn't that mostly in WWII though?  I think the Fairfax plant built the B-25 and had 50,000 employees (that's astounding). The B-25 was used in the Doolittle raid on Tokyo.  KCMO had the Pratt Whitney plant which built aircraft engines.  That plant was known as a model of inefficiency in the US war machine but still was one of the big factors pushing the KCMO population further to the south.  After the war, the Fairfax plant reverted back to civilian use and Pratt Whitney closed down soon after.  After the TWA-American overhaul based close, Honeywell in Olathe is probably the biggest aircraft related industry in KC and they make only avionics.   
Scroll down to Sweeney Airport / Fairfax Airport / Fairfax Army Airfield (KCK), Kansas City, KS

http://members.tripod.com/airfields_fre ... s_KS_E.htm

More info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_Airport

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_Airport

My father liked to watch planes.  He wanted to be a pilot in WWII, but had a heart murmur so they wouldn't let him. Of course, that didn't stop them from drafting him and sending him to the Battle of the Bulge. 

Sometimes, at night, we would park by a fence at the old KCMO airport and watch planes land and take off.  And we visited the Fairfax airport many times.  It was a nice building. The original sign is located in front of the fire station in Fairfax. 
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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mlind wrote: Scroll down to Sweeney Airport / Fairfax Airport / Fairfax Army Airfield (KCK), Kansas City, KS
Yes, I realize that Fairfax remained open long after the war, but aircraft manufacturing ceased pretty quickly after WWII.  KC was an early aviation leader but that industry has mostly departed from KC which is too bad because it is an industry we could have held on to unlike some of our other lost industries like refining and meat processing. 
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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I heard long ago that during WWII LTV Landing Craft were manufactured in Fairfax, as well. (by Darby Industries?) I believe the floating shoebox type of craft.  Such as was used on the D-Day landing.

Always kind of amazed me, to be in the middle of the country making bulky naval craft.  Would like to know the forms of transport that carried these to their destinations.  Were they floating as a convoy to New Orleans?  Were they small enough to ship by rail?
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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They floated them down the Missouri River to New Orleans.  I remember reading somewhere that at one point during a drought the Missouri was too low in some places to float them down the river, and it caused a big problem in delivery.
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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mlind wrote: Does anyone beside me remember the old Fairfax airport that was torn down to build the GM plant?  Lovely building.  There was a lot of aircraft industry in KCK at one time.  
I bet most people have never looked at a google map satellite image of the plant.  Not only was the airport there, in fact you can still seem the "ruins" of the runways and taxiways.  The plant now extends over the middle section of the old main runway:  

[url=http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=39.1 ... 7&t=h&z=15[/url]
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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rokhok wrote: I bet most people have never looked at a google map satellite image of the plant.  Not only was the airport there, in fact you can still seem the "ruins" of the runways and taxiways.  The plant now extends over the middle section of the old main runway:  

[url=http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=39.1 ... 7&t=h&z=15[/url]
You can also see the remains of the old Phillips refinery. 
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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Highlander wrote: You can also see the remains of the old Phillips refinery. 
Where is that on the satellite image? Looks like a few tanks in the lower-right corner.
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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KC0KEK wrote: Where is that on the satellite image? Looks like a few tanks in the lower-right corner.
Due south of the present day GM plant.  The tanks you noticed are included in the overall complex.
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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GM supplier will add 75 jobs in Shawnee

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... a=e_du_pub
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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GM Fairfax nears completion of plant retooling.

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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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loftguy wrote: I heard long ago that during WWII LTV Landing Craft were manufactured in Fairfax, as well. (by Darby Industries?) I believe the floating shoebox type of craft.  Such as was used on the D-Day landing.

Always kind of amazed me, to be in the middle of the country making bulky naval craft.  Would like to know the forms of transport that carried these to their destinations.  Were they floating as a convoy to New Orleans?  Were they small enough to ship by rail?
My mother worked in the office there during the war.
I believe they launched into the Missouri.
A friend in the houseboats in Sausalito lived on a converted Landing craft and I remember asking
her about all this. She worked for KC Structural Steel
before and after.
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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bbqboy wrote: My mother worked in the office there during the war.
I believe they launched into the Missouri.
A friend in the houseboats in Sausalito lived on a converted Landing craft and I remember asking
her about all this. She worked for KC Structural Steel
before and after.
KC's wartime output was impressive:

Ammunition from Lake City and Sunflower
B-25 production from KCK's Fairfax plant
Pratt Whitney engine plant (Bendix) for several aircraft including the Corsair
Higgins Boats

I suspect the Leeds Plant probably was on a war footing too but I have no idea what they made there.  


Edit...tried to answer my own question but found this rather interesting article for those that might be history buffs about KC in the pre WWII to WWII era.  My interest is peaked because my father, his father and even his father owned and operated restaurants in the old KC industrial areas along the Blue River and Winner Road and when those areas evaporated, so did the restaurants. 

http://www.umkc.edu/whmckc/PUBLICATIONS ... -28-93.pdf
Last edited by Highlander on Sat May 28, 2011 10:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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this says launched into the kaw, but now I'm trying to imagine where the plant was:
http://shipbuildinghistory.com/history/ ... /darby.htm
edit: pg 11 & 12 on this seem to agree with me
http://www.umkc.edu/whmckc/PUBLICATIONS ... -28-93.pdf
Last edited by bbqboy on Sat May 28, 2011 11:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: GM Fairfax Investment..

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bbqboy wrote: this says launched into the kaw, but now I'm trying to imagine where the plant was:
http://shipbuildinghistory.com/history/ ... /darby.htm
edit: pg 11 & 12 on this seem to agree with me
http://www.umkc.edu/whmckc/PUBLICATIONS ... -28-93.pdf

I believe it was at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers at the tip of the west bottoms.  I remember my father pointing that out to me at one point in time. 
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