Muskegon, the "Arsenal of Democracy"-- Part 2

Later Continental had to construct a new aircraft engine plant building to make Rolls-Royce Merlin liquid-cooled engines for the British Spitfire fighters, the planes that saved Britain. //// THE MAGNOLIA CONNECTION //// Recruiters from city factories roamed far and wide across the United States to find workers. They especially went to Kentucky and Tennessee to find poor Southern whites and blacks and sent them by train to Muskegon. Also, a lot of blacks came from Magnolia, Arkansas, and High Point, North Carolina. As a result, Muskegon's minority population increased seven times higher during the war. //// Muskegon was also the first U.S. city to be honored with the "M" flag (for manufacturing) in 1944. The city also a had a ship named after it, the USS Muskegon, a patrol frigate in the Atlantic Ocean. //// Lots of War Effort. --GreGen