Home of the Ranger Ford's Twin Cities' outpost is set on 148 riverside acres in the comfortable residential neighborhood of Highland Park. But inside the sprawling plant, an industrial miracle of sorts occurs. Two thousand parts come together over seven miles of assembly line to become a Ranger truck, a process repeated more than 900 times a day. Piles of wires and instrument panels are transformed into dashboards. Stacks of shiny stamped aluminum panels morph into truck cabs.
Robots run the paint booths.
The operation is a huge economic asset for St. Paul, and has been since the city's business leaders staged a coup in 1923, enticing Henry Ford to move his car factory from Minneapolis. Given the auto industry's cyclical nature, rumors sweep through the plant from time to time that a shutdown may be coming. In 1997, for instance, the Detroit Free Press published a story, citing auto industry analysts, that Ranger production might be moved from St. Paul and Edison, N.J., to Dearborn, and that the former plants would be closed within three years. It was a false prophecy. Leaders of Auto Workers Local 879 certainly are.