the Henry Ford manufacturing principle was to let nothing go to waste, and by selling byproducts, lower the cost of the Model T. One byproduct was wasted wood chips and scrap lumber, and that was turned into charcoal, which became the Kingsford Charcoal Briquets (thanks Randy for the motivation to make this an extensive researched post)

Harvey Firestone. Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Edward Kingsford 1923

Ford’s cousin, Minnie, t1Kingsford who ran a successful timber business and owned several car dealerships thanks to his wife’s family connections. https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/05/e-g-kingsford-ford-dealership-iron.html

Ford had begun wrestling control from his stockholders and purchasing raw materials to be used in making his vehicles. Anything to make his car making process more efficient. So he bought 310,000 acres of the Upper Peninsula forests, and put in Ford company towns, stores and sawmills. https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/05/ford-at-keating-spur-in-lanse-and.html  and https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-small-place-named-big-bay-that-henry.html

So Ford invited Kingsford to go camping with the Vagabonds, Henry's good friends and frequent camping trip companions, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs, the conservationist, and President Harding went along once... to talk business.

Ford Motor Company manufactured charcoal briquettes from wood wastes generated by its lumber operations in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. To help promote the briquettes, Ford also sold charcoal grills through its auto dealerships and employee commissaries, as well as traditional hardware and sporting goods stores. Charcoal provided picnickers with a quick-burning fuel that eliminated the work of gathering and lighting firewood.

A University of Oregon chemist, Orin Stafford, had invented a method for making pillow-shaped lumps of fuel from sawdust and mill waste combined with tar and bound together with potato cornstarch. He called the lumps “charcoal briquettes.”

The Model T was a car that needed a lot of lumber, and made a lot of hardwood scraps, as the frame, wheel spokes, dashboard, and kick panel were all wood, which required about 100 board feet of hardwood per car, and so the factories were using about a million board feet a day

Thomas Edison designed the briquette factory next to the sawmill, and Kingsford ran it. It was a model of efficiency, producing 610 lb of briquettes for every ton of scrap wood.

 The product was sold only through Ford dealerships. Ford then named the new business Ford Charcoal and changed the name of the charcoal blocks to “briquets”. At the beginning, the charcoal was sold to meat and fish smokehouses, but supply exceeded demand.

By the mid-1930s, Ford was marketing “Picnic Kits” containing charcoal and portable grills directly from Ford dealerships, capitalizing on the link between motoring and outdoor adventure that his own Vagabond travels popularized. “Enjoy a modern picnic,” the package suggested. “Sizzling broiled meats, steaming coffee, toasted sandwiches.” It wasn’t until after World War II that backyard barbecuing took off, thanks to suburban migration, the invention of the Weber grill and the marketing efforts. An investment group bought Ford Charcoal in 1951 and renamed it to Kingsford Charcoal in honor of Edward G. Kingsford (and the factory's home-base name) and took over the operations. The plant was later acquired by Clorox in 1973.

Charcoal bricks were also used in foot warmers, and used without burning to absorb moisture and prevent mold and wood rot.

https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/02/floor-heater-with-original-charcoal.html

Blast furnace slag was used to make Portland Cement, 2600 barrels a day

They also made Ammonium Sulphate, Johannson Gage Blocks, Methyl Acetone, and Creosote Gas

C.H.Johansson Co. a division of the Ford Motor Co

Johansson had been struggling in Sweden, despite patenting his idea in 1901 and receiving international recognition.

He set up in NY in 1919, but was on the verge of bankruptcy by 1923.

Henry Ford offered Carl E. Johansson the use of his facilities at Dearborn in 1923. The Johansson division of the Ford Motor Company was the result. Johansson would not give Ford the exclusive right to use his blocks, but did give them the right to sell them.

Sven Lundquist brought his family and knowledge to Dearborn Michigan in the 1920's, to manage the Ford Motor Johansson Gage Block Division. (machinist measuring blocks)

http://www.aajansson.com/gage-blocks.html

For the definitive history of guage blocks, and the involvement of Johannson, and Ford, read https://www.mitutoyo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/E12016-History-of-The-Gage-Block.pdf

that's the short and sweet story, for a little more in depth, listen to this long winded bastard go off on tangents, but he puts out incredible info - like Leland of Cadillac getting gage blocks first, which reminds me I need to post how Cadillac was the winner of a prestigious French contest where a 3 caddys were taken apart, the parts mixed at random, then randomly three cars were assembled, and then ran around a track flawlessly... it's a very important automobile historic moment, and story. I'll get around to that one of these days - it's on my list of things to post



https://unrememberedhistory.com/2016/06/21/henry-ford-the-vagabonds-e-g-kingsford-and-the-history-of-the-charcoal-briquette/
https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/expert-sets/101417/
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/summer-series-business-as-unusual-the-world-of-business-to-business-advertising-1.3534850
https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/search-results#advancedSearch=1&tab=artifact-results&s.0.in=keywords&s.0.for=Gage%20blocks&years=0-0&perPage=10&pageNum=1&sortBy=relevance

https://modeltfordfix.com/ford-times-magazines-and-other-fun-stuff/#more-1983