Resting places not so final at Ford plant site
Early excavation work for a pair of battery plants that Ford Motor Co. is building in Kentucky has unearthed 19 unmarked graves.
The human remains apparently were left behind during a 2003 relocation of a cemetery on the 1,500-acre site, Louisville TV station WAVE reported last week.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working to identify potential family members and move the bodies elsewhere. Kentucky law requires the graves, which may date to the 1800s or early 1900s, to be relocated.
Delbert Best, who lives next to the site, said his grandfather bought the property in 1862 and that the remains could have been buried by his family or the previous landowners. He has a newer family cemetery in his backyard.
“I went back there as a kid and played marbles back there,” Best said of the graves on Ford’s land. “So I knew they was back there, yeah. But I didn’t know there was that many.”
The relocation process isn’t expected to delay construction of the battery plants. Ford and its battery partner, SK Innovation, are spending $5.8 billion on the campus near Glendale. They plan to begin production at the site, which will be called BlueOval SK Battery Park, in 2025.