The Packard Club [[Packard Automobile Classics) has just mailed it's latest issue of their excellent publication "the Cormorant" and this issue is devoted exclusively to the Packard plant. There are several articles, the first being a nostalgic review of what the area around the plant was like [[and the city in general) just before the company's demise, it was written by Leon Dixon.
Other articles include a reprint of a story that appeared in the Detroit News "The last man out of Packard" about a man that was kept on Studebaker-Packard's payrolls to oversee the emptying of the buildings, and a fascinating article reprinted from a professional firefighter's magazine written by the [[then) Detroit Fire chief concerning the February 1959 blaze there that raged on for 13 days unabated.
Local Packard historian and main organizer of the group that has saved the central parcel of land at the Utica Packard Proving Grounds, John McArthur wrote an article about the last twenty years of the plant, it eludes to some of intrigue that has gone on with the city and state, but does not name names beyond those that are well known. I thought his wrap-up pretty much said it best, It needs to go now, and that only the price of steel will determine that.
Unfortunately, the magazine is only published for the 5,000 or so members of the club. There are many old photographs of the days when stately cars issued forth from the plant, and pictures of the desolation and ruin that is there today.