By 1933, car sales has decreased enough, due to the Great Depression, that the demand for lumber was nearly nonexistent. As the mill was idled during that period, Henry Ford created other work for residents by establishing a cooperative farm east of town. As an additional measure, the company store adjusted its food prices and donated clothing and shoes to employees and their families. Ford also used the town as a model for his theories on self-reliance and education; he established a vocational school in his summer home (to be used during the school year), and also opened four one-room elementary and intermediate schools in September 1935. In 1937, the company built a high school, which contained state-of-the-art home economics food and clothing labs and a library, as well as the first fluorescent lights in a Michigan school.