Green Island developed as a distinctive urban village whose industrial life was anchored for 63 years by the Ford Company and other manufacturers including Bendix, Manning Paper, and Zak Inc. From the opening of the Ford plant in the 1920s through World War II and the boom times of the 1950s and 1960s, it was a major manufacturing center where high wages, job security, and strong community organizations made it a stable place to raise families. In 1976, as the community marked the U.S. Bicentennial and reflected on its role in American industrial success, that stability was soon tested when the Green Island Bridge built in 1884 collapsed on March 15, 1977, cutting Green Island off from Troy for more than four years, yet the village recovered with new parks, new industries, and a renewed sense of purpose. Green Island also preserves notable sites including Corporation Hall, built in 1883, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, built in 1886 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978, the Green Island Bridge dedicated in 1981, River Park, the Federal Dam and Lock, and Starbuck Island. A pivotal chapter in its history began in August 1919, when Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs camped near the federal dam under construction on the upper Hudson River. Inspired by the dam's hydroelectric potential, Ford received a license in March 1921 to build a private-use plant that would also supply free power to the new lock and dam, then completed his largest plant in Green Island in 1923. Powered by the Hudson River hydroelectric facility for more than 60 years, the Ford plant produced radiators and heater cores and served as Ford's key engine and foundry facility until production moved to Michigan and the plant closed in 1988; the factory was demolished in 2004, but the hydroelectric plant remained and was taken over by the Green Island Power Authority in 2000.