General Motors closed their desert proving ground in Mesa (north of Queen Creek, along Ellsworth) this summer and moved it to Yuma. I don't have dates, but I heard that when the facility opened they tested the prototype for the Corvette here. For the last few years, only a small division of workers remained at the facility, presumably closing things down and preparing for the move.This is a picture of the water tower that I took Monday afternoon. Last night (Tuesday), when I drove by, I saw the GM logo had been painted over--there was just a blue square in the middle of the white tank. Unfortunately, Monday's picture isn't what I had hoped it would be (the angle from the parking lot wasn't great and I wanted to go back and try again), but at least I do have this shot.
Well it didn't take long for that to happen...and now you have a photo of what was once a GM water tower...
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised they didn't just paint the whole thing white again, rather than leaving the blue square...unless they plan to use it for whatever replaces the GM logo...
Maybe they wanted to leavea sign that they had been there.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I thought that was odd, too... Why not just paint the whole thing white? Maybe it would have taken multiple coats of white paint to cover blue, so they decided to save time and money by just repainting the blue square.
ReplyDeleteAnother landmark gone! I remember driving past it a hundred times. You just kind of expect it to be there forever.
ReplyDeleteMy dad started working there in 1956 as a test driver. He did the very first acceleration test on the big block Corvette! He retired from the GMDPG back in 1996.
ReplyDeleteMy dad, Alburn Pace, worked there from 1964 until he retired as the Carpenter Shop Foreman after test driving for a number of years. He had stories of having to remove rattlers from the test track before the daily use.
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