On April 20, 1997, the Toledo Blade devoted an entire section of its newspaper to the jeep history, going all the way back to the construction of the Jewel sewing machine factory in 1885. While it isn’t a perfect history (for example Jeep did not copyright the name JEEP in 1946, they tried, and failed, to trademark it at that time), it’s still interesting with some photos and a historical time line.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=I2oxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dgMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6687%2C7138684

In the photo above Willys MAs are rolling off the assembly line.