In 1921, Henry Ford purchased the former Swain Mill property in Brooklyn, which had burned nine years earlier, and left it vacant until 1938, when construction began on the Ford Motor Company Brooklyn Plant. Nearly all the men hired to build the plant were village residents, and when it opened in 1939, about 80 villagers were employed there making components for Ford automobiles. The plant brought a major economic boost to Brooklyn as the country emerged from the Great Depression, and Ford made several visits to the site. In 1942, the plant shifted to wartime production, making parts for B-24 bombers, and received commendation from the US Air Corps for high-quality production. After the war, it made distributors and supplied 50% of Ford's horn buttons and starter switches for cars and trucks, and in 1954 it began producing small plastic components. Ford closed the plant in 1966. Since 1967, the property, also known as the Old Irish Mill, has had several owners and the building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The building that served as the plant from 1939 to 1967 was the 15th of Ford's 19 Village Industry developments, and its Moderne style, red brick exterior, and large windows reflected the decentralized, water-powered factories Ford established in rural southeastern Michigan between 1920 and 1944.