An Anglo-owned company until it was nationalized by the new Navajo Nation, Farmington-based Ravenscroft Industries originally produced light machinery. As one of a handful of companies capable of the precision engineering required for aircraft manufacture, Ravenscroft was a natural choice to build the Navajo Nation’s first aircraft plant. Construction of the assembly facility began in the fall of 1931, and the first aircraft rolled out in the spring of 1933.