Detroit, June 4, 1896

t was after midnight when a light summer mist started

to fall outside the backyard workshop and Henry Ford

began putting the final touches on the peculiar-looking machine

which had obsessed him, in one form or another, all his adult life.

On most other evenings, Felix Julien, the oht man who lived in the

flat next door to the Fords and had cleared out his halt" of the shed

to give the machine more space to grow, wouhl have been there, too,

sitting in a corner of the shed, watching the painstaking assembly in

silent awe. In fact, Ford had often arrived home from his daytime

job as chief mechanic at Detroit s Edison Illuminating Company to

find Julien sitting alone in the shadows, staring at the odd contrap-

tion slowly taking shape, impatient for him to hurry through dinner

and get to work. But now, on this night of nights, the old man had

unaccountably decided to go to bed early and so he missed the last

act of the grcat drama.

It was almost 2 A.M. when Henry and his friend Jim Bishop fin-

ished work. Although he was haggard from having gone two nights

without sleep, Ford s recessed gray eyes flashed with excitement.

tlis invention was finally ready tot a test. But as hc began to maneu-

ver it toward the door there was a revelation of the myopia everyone

who knew him accepted as a paradoxical part of his visionary nature:

the machine was too big to fit through the doors of the shop. Without

hesitating, Ford seized a maul and began to knock out an opening in

the brick walls.

Henry rolled the vehicle he later referred to as "the baby car-

riage"--a light chassis on four bicycle wheels--out into the night.