Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-09-03
Oldsmobile Nucleus of Motor Ind ustry

Just % years ago on August 81 the
Odds Motor works was born.
And that little company, the brain
child of Ransom E. Olds and Frank
Clark of Lansing, Mich, then COM
paratively insignificant, was the nu-
cleus from which sprang one of the
greatest industries in the country and
made Michigan the automobile center
of the world.
Back in 1895 both Odds and Clark,
young men in the employ of their faith
ers, had a vision of the automobile,
and against the wishes of their fathers,
they spent a major part of their time
in a shed in Lansing perfecting their
work.
Odds, whose father made gas engines,
was to furnish the engine and mechani-
cal work, and Clark, whose father was
a builder of buggies, was to furnish the
carriage and body work. After two
years spent in experiments, the young
men incorporated the Olds Motor Vehi-
Gle company at Lansing in 1897 with
Ransom Z. Odds as president, and both
young men holding the principal stock.
In 1898 they finished their first
automobile, and today it is housed in
the Smithsonian institute in Washing
Ton, SHOTIlV after lulS, >IdEh DtSdLlG
depressed at the slowness of success of
the first car, and sold his stock to
Odds, who went to Detroit for more
capital, continuing operation in his old
plant in Lansing. however. On May s,
1899. the name of the firm was changed
to Olds Motor works, and a recapitali-
cation effected.
In what vas destined to be the
x-orIIfo nraataGf mntnr cIfV 0Ihl o.
tablished a second factory and started
q business which made the Michigan
city the center of the vast development
in the auto world. He was backed in
this venture by S. L. Smith, a Michigan
copper king.
Immediately the Odds company
nlunged into a production program
which even today stands as a great
production figure and in 1900 the COM
MANY produced 1.400 cars. In 1901 they
marketed $500 cars and these were
sold to celebrities all over the world.
Sir Thomas Upton, the British yachts
man. and the queens of England and
Italv were among those who bought
these first cars. In 1903 the Odds
mobile made a sensation when the
pirate" driven by II. L. Thomas, then
associate engineer of Odds. broke the
worlds speed record at Daytona
Beach. Florida. The anne year the car
won the Tour de France.
The influence Of the Oldsmobile on
business conditions and the future de-
yelopment of the industry is realized
when it is pointed out that at that
time no other American had started
TO build cars commercially. Many of the
biggest concerns in the country, in
Guiding Ford, Dodge, and Cadillac. owe
their existence to orders placed by
the Odds Motor works for parts with
various companies in which the moving
spirits of these later concerns were
then interested.
In 1902. due TO a fire in the Detroit
plant, operations were confined entire
" to the Lansing plant. In 1904 Odds
left the company and with II. L.
Thomas founded the first offshoot of
the organization. the REQ Motor Car
company of Lansing.
In 1904 the Oldsmobile again set a
high mark for production and in 1908
two Oldsmobiles raced against each
other in a %grilling grind from Wash
ington. ID. c. to Seattle, Wash. This
race was unusually hard, due TO the
fact that, in those days, macadam and
cement roads were unknown.
So rapidly did the work progress
that in 1906 the Olds factory was able
to offer the public the first medium
priced four-cylinder car ever pro-