Renderings courtesy of and copyright General Motors
The new GM might not be the old GM (and there are lots of positives to that), but that doesn’t mean the company doesn’t recognize its considerable roots in Flint, Michigan.
A little over two years after purchasing the original Durant-Dort Factory One, GM has announced their intention to turn the 130 plus year-old building into a research and archive center. GM archives are currently housed at the Flint-based Kettering University, which was part of GM from its founding in 1919 until the early 1980s.
The archives, which will be accessible as part of the research center, will be housed on the first floor of the east wing, while the second floor will feature a conference room for GM that can also be used as a community classroom, with the intention of hosting STEM-related classes there. The west wing, with a high ceiling, will feature a museum of sorts with “classic vehicles and other artifacts from Flint’s carriage-building era,” according to GM. There is also a strong likelihood that GM will display parts of its collection of classic automobiles that are not presently on display at the GM Heritage Center.
Though GM built no automobiles in the building, its importance to the beginnings of the company remains significant. Originally opened in 1880 as part of the Flint Cotton and Woolen Mills Company, the building was sitting vacant when leased in 1886 by William C. Durant and Josiah Dort, founders of the Flint Road Cart Company. Durant and Dort grew the business into a large enterprise, changing the name to the Durant-Dort Carriage Company. Tens of thousands of carts and carriages were produced there every year, making them the largest passenger vehicle maker in the world just as the horse-drawn carriage industry was making way for the automobile.
Durant-Dort’s success gave Durant the capital start General Motors, first by purchasing and immediately turning around the struggling Buick Motor Company in 1904. Using Buick as the core company, Durant quickly added Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Oakland and other makes to the rapidly growing organization.
Durant was forced out, returned and was forced out again in a matter of time, but Durant-Dort Factory One was never used by GM to manufacture automobiles. Instead, it continued as the main plant for the Durant-Dort Carriage Company until 1915, when Josiah Dort, who had also left GM, started making his own cars there. The Dort Motor Car Company made a pretty good go of it, manufacturing cars from 1915 through 1924, when Josiah Dort, in failing health, liquidated the by-then underperforming company and its holdings. Josiah Dort died in 1925.
Since the 1920s, Factory One has been used by a paper company, as a warehouse and even by a watch repair company, though it had long since fallen into disuse before GM’s 2013 purchase.
Technically, the papers of incorporation that created GM were signed across the street at the Durant-Dort Carriage Company’s offices across the street from Factory One. A designated National Historic Landmark since 1978, the office building has also been financially supported by GM for its maintenance and not insignificant heating and cooling bills since they purchased the factory building in May of 2013, though it remains the property of the Flint Historical Foundation.
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