60 companies | American Airlines | TV/RADIO | Shipbuilding | Uranium mine | Checker/ Yellow Cab

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
These were the flashiest vehicles. Well, that's a problem when during the Great Depression, when people are standing in food lines, they don't know where money is coming from. They don't know how to feed their children. And the model j is flying around. So that was one of the things that kind of hindered the company a bit from moving forward, really Auburn's chords and dues and birds were all playing off of one another to support the company and all of its sales. Unfortunately, you know, after and during the Great Depression. By 1937. The losses at the company were significant, and the decision was made to close and they closed everything. There were no pink slips. Literally the doors were shut down, and people were out of work. And that's including, you know, down in Indianapolis here in Auburn vehicle manufacturing also happened at the South Central manufacturing plant in Connersville, Indiana. So it was a layoff of 1000s of people after that cord went on to different business ventures. It was during his time with the Auburn automobile company that he started the cord Corporation. And the cord Corporation was a holding company a subsidiary took for all of the different companies that cord owns. So we have a list of over 60 companies and actually have the list in front of me, but people will be amazed about what he owned. He owned American Airways, for example. It was under Cordes leadership that it was changed to American Airlines. He owns several actually different airline companies. He owned Stinson airplanes, which is why we have two stencils. Actually one of them is currently being restored. It was owned by the Auburn automobile company in 1930. And we have a photo when the building opened in 1930, and a Stinson right there in that corner. So we're replicating that history. He had central manufacturing, as I had mentioned, New York Shipbuilding Corporation, he went into real estate, television studios, radio stations, he went into uranium mining, but railroad transport them again with the shifts that he had, he went into checker cab company in the yellow cab companies safety cab company, National Transportation Company.

Unknown Speaker  2:30  
I mean, you kind of name it, and if it's in the transportation field cord was involved with it. So much so that when the securities exchange commission was established, in 1936, one of the first people that they were investigating was eo cord and the cord Corporation. So it was during that time that cord did sell off his over 20% of the cord Corporation at that time, walking away with about Wednesday was about 2.5 million at that time, but he would continue and he would move on to Beverly Hills where he actually owned a plot of land and he created a 56 room mansion that was called cord Haven and he had a cattle ranching industry and cattle ranching farm or ranch is well in Nevada that was called the circle l ranch and he was a Nevada State Senator. He went on to do amazing things. We have photos with him of JFK Kord created this amazing legacy within the transportation world. So we're looking again at Auburn's corbs Duisenberg, our physical museum building that we're in wouldn't exist if it wasn't for court. He's the one that hired the architect from Fort Wayne to design it. And he's the one who built it and it was opened up in 1930. We could possibly not have the, you know, well, the cord 810 and 812 that I haven't even gone into, but the hidden headlights on there that were designed and the coffin nose grill that you have there in the louvers, and the fuel filler cap and you know, the Bendix transmission that's on the semi automatic transmission. There were so many things that cord created, or that people that worked for cord created, and he charged his employees hard. I mean, he made them work hard and do more with less. It was very lean all the time. Even for example, you know, you're creating the grandest Duesenberg model j and then he says, We need a radiator cap for that, that shows that it's a model j but you don't have any money to design it. And you basically have to do it with parts that we have. And that's exactly what what they did. You can tell it original Duisenberg j cap because you can actually see scenes where it's welded to dues and bird onto the little holder. So again without cord, I really think that the transportation world would look so different and God knows you and I wouldn't be sitting here and talking. We wouldn't have the Auburn court Duesenberg automobile. We wouldn't have the Auburn quarters and third club, we wouldn't have the Auburn court Duesenberg festival I mean, they it's almost like collateral damage when you think what would happen to veal cord wasn't what a legacy, for sure. An extreme legacy, both of his and we obviously give great respect and commend the people that work with cord to there are lots of people 1000s of people behind the scenes that work to make this all happen. However, we're looking at the leadership of cord and what he did unbelievable and not bad for your first day. You know, what can I tell you? Yeah, yeah, you know, amazing. You did really well studying. This has been Jeff Sterns connected through cars.

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