In December 1940, the U.S. government asked the Ford Motor Co. (Dearborn, MI) to build 1,200 B-24 bombers designed by Consolidated Aircraft Co. Ford agreed to the plan, and in April 1941 construction began on what would become the largest assembly plant in the world.
A 1,878-acre tract of land near Ypsilanti, MI, was selected for the facility, which Henry Ford dubbed Willow Run in honor of a creek that ran through the property. An L-shaped building was designed by Albert Kahn, a famous industrial architect who designed numerous assembly plants for Ford and other automakers, such as Buick, Chrysler, Dodge, Packard and Pierce-Arrow.