Cartoons from 1915 Issue of Ford Times

The old man's face is priceless!

Henry Ford's Florida Rubber Plantation

Naturally the speculators had to get their hand in the everyone's honey pot.

Ford also grew Oranges on the property. Evidenced by this 1928 St. Petersburg Times Article

It's well known that Henry Ford had a rubber plantation down in the Amazon in Brazil. Two excellent books have been written about this venture, and Vintage Ford Facts did a review of these books in an earlier post. Click link below.
Vintage Ford Facts' Fordlandia Book Reviews here.

What is not widely known is Ford owned acreage in Labelle and Fort Thompson in Florida with intent to grow rubber on this land.  This came about before the Edison Botanic Research Company in 1927 in which Ford, Thomas Edison & Harvey Firestone funded Edison in his search for alternative sources of rubber.

Ford came into possession of the Labelle property in 1924 as a result of a defaulted mortgage by Edgar Goodno, and hired Goodno to oversee the operation.

William Blakeley who would later go on to work at the Fordlandia Rubber plantation, examined the Labelle property and sent a letter back to the Dearborn Office describing the property. In part it reads:
 consists of 8,200 acres mostly along the Caloosahatchee River, 5,500 acres are cleared and runs from a mucky loam in low sections to a sandy loam.

Henry Ford & Thomas Edison inspected the property several times during their annual winter winter visits to Fort Myers. It appears Edison visited the Labelle property in 1924 for the first time.

With the presence of Henry Ford in town, speculators moved in and started advertising lots for sale and subdivisions that would be built. (see above advertisement) Things got out of hand and Ford's General Secretary; Ernest Liebold was forced to take action and quash the rumors. There are many reports of Liebold sending threatening cease & desist letters to various real estate development firms.

So what ever became of the project?  Initial test plantings were encouraging, but with the Caloosahatchee River flooding the property during the rainy season and other causes, the rubber farm did not work out. The whole works was sold in 1942 to a local cattle rancher and to this day the land remains farm & cattle land.

No buildings appear to have survived the fires & neglect that ravaged this area, but in aerial views you can see remnants of streets that were put in for neighboring subdivisions. As you drive along State Road 80 between Labelle & Clewiston, it's not hard to picture the land looking the same as it did during Ford's time, only difference being the newer machinery and some fields use modern methods of farming.

Henry Ford's X-8 Engine

Henry Ford & staff worked on several prototype engines to replace the Model T engine. Perhaps the most famous of them all was the X-8 Engine. This motor has been well documented over the years. A few examples still exist- one is on display in the Powerhouse at Henry Ford's Fairlane Estate in Dearborn, another is located in Speedy Bill's Museum in Lincoln Nebraska, and a third is in the possession of Eli Apolzon. There are rumors of a couple more in private hands, but I am unable to confirm this. Henry Ford Museum conducted a few auctions over the years and lots of rare Ford items such as these motors have made it out in the general public. If anyone has any idea, let me know and I will update my dataset. To see some great photos of this rare engine click on the links below.
Eli Apolzon's X-8 Engine Page
Hemming's Blog Entry on Experimental Ford Engines
Here at Vintage Ford Facts we delve a little deeper into all things Ford. Here's a bit more about these engines with a couple of era photos below.

In his reminiscences Gene Farkas remembers Henry Ford coming to him around 1920 and saying "I know you'll laugh, but I want to build a cross shaped engine with eight cylinders, let's get busy on it!" And they did get busy- around 10-12 of these engines were built. The first two were water cooled and had dual camshafts. Later improvements brought on were pressurized oiling, battery ignition and other features that predated current Ford thinking.

One of the X-8 Engines was installed in an Oldsmobile Chassis, as it was too big to fit in a Model T chassis, and while speed & performance were good, the bottom cylinders & plugs being exposed to road dirt & moisture caused alot of problems with fouling spark plugs, etc.

Edsel Ford had a speedboat outfitted with a later version of an X-8 engine, but it too gave trouble and the project was abandoned. Even though Henry Ford really wanted to see the X-8 become a reality, time was of the essence to build a car to replace the Model T, the X-8 was destined to become yet another part of the wonderful Ford Motor Co. history.

Below are two period photographs of the X-8 Engine:

Thomas Edison's Fordson Tractor

After a short break for the holidays, we are back with a vengeance here at Vintage Ford Facts.

It's well documented that Henry Ford & Thomas Edison were friends. What is not well documented is the fact that not only did Thomas Edison receive Model A #1 in 1928, but also a Fordson Tractor!

If you click the link below it will take you a great article and some photos on this unique piece of Ford history...

Gas Engine.com page on Edison's Tractor