Local History

I'm finding that this little town of Flora, Illinois in which I live was once quite a big deal. The papers have a small column telling of the history of this area and it's really pretty interesting. But this week that column exploded onto the front page with the story of a time when the town changed its name to Fordtown.

Fifty years ago the Ford company sent fliers to everyone in town asking them if they were going to buy a car what type would they buy - little did they know they were filling out a request for the car they would be test driving. Weeks later Ford came to town and every car dealership - including non-Ford dealers set up shop to help register everyone into their new Fords for a week. The only catch was that the only color the cars came in was white. It was a huge success and media poured into the area from all over the country - including The New York Times. At the end of the week the test drivers were given deals to buy the cars if they wanted. It was the only promotion of its type that Ford did, and Flora was the lucky spot because at the time they were the population center-point of the country.

I find history fascinating and I thought this little piece of local history was one worth passing on.