Willow Run: where Rosie the Riveter built a bomber an hour
Ypsilanti Township's Willow Run plant turned out a B-24 bomber roughly every hour at its WWII peak — the 'Arsenal of Democracy' made literal, now honored by the Yankee Air Museum.
When America needed a miracle in 1941, Ford built it on the soybean fields east of Ypsilanti. The Willow Run bomber plant, designed by Albert Kahn, stretched nearly a mile under one roof. It applied auto-industry mass production to the B-24 Liberator. By its wartime peak, the line delivered a finished four-engine bomber roughly every hour, around the clock. Tens of thousands of workers poured in, including legions of women. Their work here helped create an American icon. “Rosie the Riveter” was born of plants like this one, and Willow Run’s Rosies were the most famous of all.
The plant built transmissions for GM for half a century afterward. When most of it finally came down in 2014, the community refused to lose the story. A preservation campaign saved a section of the original factory for the Yankee Air Museum. Its flying warbirds and home-front exhibits now keep the memory loud at Willow Run Airport, on the Ypsilanti Township–Van Buren Township line. For the townships around it, that’s the inheritance. When historians say American industry won the war, a fair share of the winning happened right here.
Where to see it
The Yankee Air Museum at Willow Run Airport, with warbirds and home-front exhibits; a preserved section of the original bomber plant is part of its campus.