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N0KFQ > TODAY 08.11.16 15:07l 55 Lines 2621 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 12654_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Nov 8
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N0KFQ
Sent: 161108/1255Z 12654@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ6.0.13
1962
Sun sets on the Ford Rotunda
On this day in 1962, the famous Ford Rotunda stands in Dearborn,
Michigan for the last time: the next day, it is destroyed in a
massive fire. Some 1.5 million people visited the Rotunda each
year, making it the fifth most popular tourist attraction in the
U.S. (behind Niagara Falls, Smokey Mountain National Park, the
Smithsonian, and the Lincoln Memorial).
Ford had commissioned the Rotunda for the 1933 Century of
Progress exposition in Chicago and had moved it to Dearborn when
the fair ended. It was 130 feet high and designed to look like a
stack of gears surrounding a 92-foot-wide courtyard. (In 1952, an
18,000-pound dome was added over the courtyard; it was the first
real-world application of inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's
lightweight geodesic dome.) Outside, the building's steel frame
was covered in 114,000 square feet of Indiana limestone; inside,
the walls were covered in murals showing the River Rouge assembly
line. On the Rotunda's grounds were 19 "reproductions" of what
Ford called the Roads of the World: the Appian Way, the Grand
Trunk Road, the Oregon Trail and Detroit's Woodward Avenue.
Many people who grew up near Detroit during the 1950s remember
the Rotunda for its spectacular Christmas displays. Every year
since 1953, it had had a 37-foot-tall tree, an elaborate Santa's
workshop and a life-size Nativity that the National Council of
Churches called the "largest and finest" in the country. Each
year's installation had a different theme: the 1958 display
boasted a 15,000-piece hand-carved miniature circus, for
instance, and the 1962 show was scheduled to be a woodland
tableau featuring 2,500 dolls.
While workmen were preparing the Rotunda for that display,
someone overturned a firepot or heater on the building's tar
roof. Just after lunch, an employee spotted flames on the ceiling
of the main floor. "Within a few minutes after the first alarm,"
The New York Times reported, "the octagonal top of the building
resembled a huge chimney, with smoke and fumes pouring out."
Workers evacuated, and the building burned to the ground in less
than an hour. A group of schoolchildren visiting the Rotunda from
South Bend watched in horror from a cafeteria across the street.
It would have cost at least $15 million to rebuild the Rotunda.
The company opted not to spend the money, and razed the
building's remains instead. Today, a satellite campus of the
Michigan Technical Education Center stands in its place.
73 - K.O., n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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