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Brewster factory

Brewster factory, Warrington, Pennsylvania

The Brewster company owned a factory in Pennsylvania--built on company land which was sold to a U.S. government agency, equipped at taxpayer expense with buildings and runways, and then leased back to the company. (This wasn't a particularly unusual deal for 1941.) The factory was tasked with building the Bermuda or Buccaneer dive bomber, along with license-built Corsair fighters, but financial and production problems combined to ensure that none were completed during the critical winter of 1941-1942. As a result, the Navy seized the property on April 19, along with other Brewster factories.

The Pennsylvania factory became part of Jonesville Naval Air Station, which by the spring of 2002 had been closed and sold. The new owner took down the Navy signage on the old Brewster build, and behold!--the Brewster name reappeared for what was probably the first time in sixty years. (You can see that the name on what appears to be granite facing is darker than the surrounding stone.)

These photos were taken in April 2002 by Willim Dougherty of Norristown PA and are copyright by him.

(For a related story, see "End nears for a plant that made flying junk").

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