Factory

[larryepke]

Can anyone confirm the address of the Tucker factory in Chicago? I've heard a rumor about that building and would like to confirm it.

thanx
Larry Epke

[TuckerCar]

7401 S Cicero Avenue
Chicago, IL 60629

Now the site of Tootsie Roll Industries and the Ford City Mall.

If you reference the common plant areal view Tucker used (on cover of April 1948 Tucker Topics), here is the same view - present day.

[noguice]

it's also great to use either MSN maps beta or Yahoo maps beta, since they offer satalite images. I've never used google earth, but i've heard it's great too.

[larryepke]

Thanks for the information. I work for the Chicago Housing Authority and someone claimed that our warehouse was the former Tucker plant, but it's at 2325 S. Federal, so we were misinformed.

[rkvirgo]

I just saw a documentary on the History Channel about Tucker and, based on clues in the show, came away suspecting that I grew up right next to the old Tucker factory. So I did a search on the internet and ended up here.

I'm a bit shocked. Most of what I knew about Tucker was from the Coppola film from a few years back. The home I grew up in a few houses from 77th and Kolmar is on the aerial photo above. We used to play softball on the concrete of the HUGE parking lot of what used to be the "Tucker Plant". The same photo shows Hancock school where I attended grades kindergarten through 6th.

What is now Ford City was known throughout the neighborhood in the 60's as the "Ford Plant" and never, ever once referred to as the "Tucker Plant". The "Ford" reference isn't wrong. I know Ford used that site in the 50's as a manufacturing facility. In fact, there's a Giordano's Restaurant right near Disney in Orlando with an old poster referring to the Ford Plant at 74th and Cicero.

I remember the project to develop the property into an indoor shopping center became something of a joke around the neighborhood. The opening date was pushed back and pushed back and pushed back... I don't recall the details but I'm sure it opened at least a year or more late. I think it finally opened in 1968.

If anyone wants to know anything about the area where the Tucker Plant was, I'd be the guy to talk to... presuming of course that you're not looking for pre-50's type info. I wasn't even born and my boyhood home hadn't even been built when Tucker was making automobiles there in the late 40's.

[Larry Clark]

If you want to have some additional fun, when you look at the great picture of the Tucker plant site, find Cicero Avenue at the base of the picture. Now look to the left and follow the railroad tracks to the next major street/bridge- it is unlabeled but it is Pulaski Road. The rather large building just before the bridge on the right (on the southwest corner) is the Great Lakes Region Office of the National Archives. It is here on original plant property that you can see, feel and read original legal documents associated with the criminal trial, the bankruptcy case and other legal matters associated with Preston Tucker. The mailing address is NARA Great Lakes, 7358 South Pulaski Road, Chicago, Illinois 60629-5898. You can learn more about it at the following web address: http://www.archives.gov/great-lakes/chicago/index.html#. There is no cost to see and review documents. However, you need to arrange in advance to visit the archives to see documents. They will ask your purpose- it is appropriate to say you are interested in automotive history, in particular that of the Tucker car. So, although the Tucker Corporation is long gone, on the original property you can still see hundreds of company documents, stock certificates, etc.

Larry