Olds Motor Works Detroit factory

01 / The story of this place

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Ransom E. Olds built his Olds Motor Works factory on East Jefferson Avenue near what is now the MacArthur Bridge to Belle Isle in 1899, one of the earliest dedicated automobile factories in the country. The plant produced the company's early gasoline and electric vehicles as Olds worked toward the mass-produced Curved Dash Oldsmobile that would soon make him one of the first automakers to sell cars by the thousands. On March 9, 1901, a fire tore through the factory and destroyed nearly everything inside; the story goes that a young employee saved the company by pushing a single Curved Dash prototype out of the burning building, and that surviving design became the basis for the car that launched the Olds company back to success. The Jefferson Avenue factory was never rebuilt on the same spot, and nothing from the original plant remains there today.

1. Built 1899, one of America's earliest dedicated auto factories
2. Destroyed by fire on March 9, 1901
3. One Curved Dash prototype survived, saved from the flames
4. That surviving design relaunched the Olds company