Henry was working for a company that repaired steam engines in Detroit. One day he got called up to repair a gas engine, he had never seen one before. When he started working on the engine, he soon realized that if he was going to build a machine to make travel and/or farming  easier, he would have to have a gas engine in it, and he would have to learn a lot about gas engines. Then in1888 he married Clara and started a sawmill on a small piece of land his father gave him. After that he got a job at the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. For weeks in a red brick shed behind his house, Ford worked on his engine. When he had that done he began to build a light carriage to put the engine in. After all that hard work Henry's car wouldn't fit through he door!  So he smashed the wall with  a hammer until there was a big hole and he drive through.  Then Ford found some people to back him , and they started the Detroit Automobile Company, which sold about 20 cars before going out of business.  So, Henry decided to build a racer.  He raced the car himself and won.  After that more people backed him and they started the Henry Ford Company.  But there was a problem.  Ford wanted to build a racer or a people car, but the backers wanted to build a fancy car for the rich.   The company bused before selling a single car. But before busting, Henry built a huge, powerful racer.  He found a man named Barney Oilfield to race what he called .999.  At the race, Henry's car came in first, beating the Bullet the world's fastest car of the time.  Ford didn't even have to look for backers, they came to him!  Even though he had enough money from the race to start his own company, he thought he could always use some extra money.  This time they called it the Ford Motor Company.  (Don't worry this time they stayed in the business.)  Henry designed all the cars, starting with a letter of the alphabet.  He made smaller and lighter  cars, then he made bigger and heavier cars.  When he reached the letter T people loved it.  He sold 17 million Model T's before people wanted something fancier.  Ford paid his workers war effort high wages and made them work low house, so had three shifts.  People that worked for Ford loved their jobs and often retired very wealthy.  Henry also made Greenfield village in Dearborn, Michigan to show how life was in the nineteenth century was like.  Henry died in bed of age in 1946 at the, age of 83.