What a wild and combative time it was in the early days of the automotive industry in America. Studebaker and EMF were duking it out in court. George Selden was filing patent infringement suits against anyone who wouldn’t pay his licensing fees, and Henry Ford was fighting him tooth and nail. The Dodge Brothers worked for Ford and then sued to force Ford to continue paying dividends on their Ford stock after they left to start their own company. Ford was biding his time to get revenge on Henry Leland, the man who founded BOTH Cadillac and Lincoln, and Leland’s son even crashed Ford’s New Year’s Eve party to serve a subpoena. There were so many competitors, and most of them were playing hardball.
It is difficult to grasp just how many choices consumers had when they went to buy an automobile, but I recently discovered an old article in the archives of our local paper that illustrates the options available at one point in time, the year 1917. While writing the article, dated March 30th of that year, the reporter spoke to a local repair man who stated that there were 134 U.S. automobile manufacturers. The reporter then reviewed tax sheets from the County Assessor’s office and discovered that 90 of the 134 makes were owned by the residents of just our one county (which would have had a population of around 23,000 at the time). A few of the names on the list are illegible, a few are misspelled, and a couple seem like they might refer to motorcycles, but here is the list of legible names. I have never heard of many of them, and who knew that Maytag made an automobile? How many do you recognize?
Ford
Saxon
Buick
Oakland
I. H. Co.
Excelsior
Dayton
Brush
Carter-Car
Winton
Chevrolet
Pullman
Rambler
Chalmers
Apperson
Mitchell
Studebaker
Overland
Maxwell
Racicle (Racycle)
National
Thomas-Flyer
Cadillac
White-Steamer
Oakland
Marion
Hupmobile
Paige
Hudson
Reo
Wagner
Stanley
International
Pope
Auburn
Locomobile
Yale
Sears-Roebuck
Firestone
Regal
Maytag
Merz
Hollier
R.C.H.
Premer (Premier)
Fall (F.A.L.)
Velie
Enger
Henderson
Kelley (Kelly)
Kissell (Kissel)
Columbia
Detroiter
Rider-Lewis
Briscoe
Orient
Abbott
Marquette
Franklin
Cutting
Hallier (Hollier)
Sayers-Scoville
Krit
Monitor
Everett
Avery
Flanders
Jeffrey
E.M.F.
Stoddard
Grant
Willeys-Knight
Reading-Standard
Case
Dort
Abbott-Detroit
Stephens-Six
Crow-Elkhart
Chandler
