Short answers, pulled from the story.
Boeing received the contract to build the S-IC stage on the 15th of December 1961. Engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center had already decided on the general design before that date.
The main manufacturing site became the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Wind tunnel testing occurred in Seattle while tool machining happened in Wichita, Kansas.
Five F-1 engines ignited in three staggered events rather than all at once. The center engine fired first followed by a diagonal pair of outer engines then seconds later the remaining two outer engines ignited.
The propellant tanks themselves were manufactured from 2219-series aluminum panels. The interstage forward skirt and thrust structure used 7075-series aluminum instead.
NASA ordered fifteen flight stages numbered one through fifteen to support the initial Apollo program. Stage S-IC-1 flew on Apollo 4 on the 9th of November 1967 and Stage S-IC-2 carried TV cameras during Apollo 6.
Budgetary restrictions caused all stages past number fifteen to be canceled altogether in October of that year. A full contract for building stages sixteen through twenty-five was drafted throughout mid-1967 but never executed due to these cuts.