>will power what it calls "the first large-scale bicycle frame manufacturing operation in the United States."
first? I can't imagine this is unprecedented, in the early 20th century at least
It's not clear to me from the article whether the factory will be making entire bikes or just "bike frames" as it says in that sentence. But there were a lot of different bike manufacturers in the early/mid-20th century, and I'd guess most of them made their own frames, so there probably was never one "large-scale bicycle frame" manufacturer.