Henry Ford envisioned Muscle Shoals as manufacturing center

By Dixie Norwood
MSNHA graduate assistant

Could you imagine Muscle Shoals becoming the “Detroit of the South”? 

Well, this almost occurred. Just before the end of World War I, two nitrate plants were completed on the Tennessee River. Their purpose was extracting nitrate to produce explosives, but they were also used to manufacture fertilizer. Starting in the early 1920s, a political battle raged in Congress for 13 years. One side favored selling the plants to private businesses, while the other side favored a more neutral choice–letting the government continue to oversee the operations at the plant, and at the same time, provide cheap electricity for the rural South.  

In 1921, Henry Ford, the automotive guru, proposed $5 million dollars to buy the town of Muscle Shoals and Wilson Dam, which was being constructed at the time. Ford wanted to build a 75 mile-wide city that would become like the city up north. He was severely opposed by delegates from around the South and Midwest, including Sen. George Norris, of Nebraska, and ran into many delays in his quest to buy Muscle Shoals. Ford finally dropped his proposal in 1924. 

By 1931, Congress agreed on a bill called the “Shoals Bill” that would let the government continue overseeing the area. Unfortunately, Pres. Herbert Hoover vetoed this bill. It would take almost three more years before this bill finally was passed. Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt believed that this would be good for the rural South and praised the work of many of the delegates that fought so hard for it, including Norris. This is how the Tennessee Valley Authority was created.  

 For more information on the Shoals Bill and the Muscle Shoals Resolution, visit www.encyclopediaofalabama.org and the www.presidency.ucsb.edu. 

Also, to read Hoover’s veto speech,  visit www.teachingamericanhistory.org and search for “Veto of the Muscle Shoals Resolution” 

Photo credits: Dixie Norwood, Encyclopedia of Alabama, Worthpoint.com, and Urbanutopias.net