the time of construction. During construction, the site briefly became a city in its own right, employing over 18,000 workers and consisting of over 1,700 temporary buildings, 236 permanent buildings, 185 residential units, 165 miles of sewage pipeline, and 685 miles of electrical cabling. The settlement's mess halls served over 20,000 meals a day, and it also contained a school with capacity for 850 students, three barbershops, and a hospital. However the dam was not finished by the war's end in 1919 and did not contribute to its outcome. With peace, interest in the dam rapidly declined, and Congress was unwilling to front costs for more public works projects, yet wasting the millions of dollars in costs to that point was similarly anathema. The Secretary of War, John Weeks sought private sector investment in order to complete the project in the post-war political climate. In 1921, Henry Ford offered to take on a 99-year lease on the dam for 5 million dollars, in which he promised to finish the dam and construct a new one upstream. Ford promised to use the dam and create a planned city in the yet-nonexistent Muscle Shoals which he would make the "Detroit of the South." The dam would be used to fuel industrial development in his new planned city, and gathered widespread support among the populace and in the House of Representatives. However, Senator George Norris believed that the dam would do more good in public hands than under Ford's ownership, and should be used as part of a large scale public works program and development scheme across the Tennessee Valley. Norris' plan would address three major concerns affecting the Tennessee Valley, persistent flooding, soil erosion, and lack of electrical power. Norris blocked the Ford proposal in the Senate, and Ford ultimately withdrew his bid in 1924, citing the delays. Construction on the dam itself was finally finished in 1924, with the first electricity generating unit going into service in September 1925. The finished dam and locks finally allowed free navigation of the Muscle Shoals for steamboats and barges. Over the next few years only 40 percent of electric generating capacity was installed. The debate over what the dam should be used for raged throughout the 1920s, with Norris' Muscle Shoals Bill being vetoed by President Herbert Hoover in 1931 as "socialistic." This all changed with the advent of the Great Depression and the