Step Back in Time: When the Gaylord Car Company came to town
GAYLORD — The Otsego County Herald Times had the following comment in the announcement regarding the coming of a new automobile plant:
“Even the superb brilliancy and magnificent spectacle which Halley’s Comet has been presenting in the heavens as it is traveling about among the celestial constellations at an almost incredible speed on its 75-year orbit has not been a marker to the grandeur of the enthusiasm which has been manifested over this new phase of the industrial development of Gaylord.
It is not alone a matter which is especially pleasing to the citizens of this village but it is also very gratifying to the people throughout the entire county who make no hesitation in declaring that the establishment of the automobile factory in Gaylord, which now seems to be an assured fact, will not only be of benefit to Gaylord but will also aid in the advertisement of the entire county.”
A copy of the organization contract, in this writer’s possession, lists the following trustees of the company: A. B. Comstock, O. W. Farrar, J. Kramer, E. Sanfer, M. Demerst, William McCoy, John Pelton, F. Shipp, and Guy Hamilton. Hamilton was also signed to a contract to supervise the business as its general manager.
The first Gaylord car was actually built in Detroit and driven to Gaylord sometime in August of 1910. The plant was still under construction at the time. It was named the Gaylord 30 and traveled from Detroit to Lansing, to Grand Rapids and then to Saginaw and Bay City. From there the car passed through Cadillac then to Alba before finally arriving in Gaylord.
The vehicle traveled between 25 and 47 miles per hour and made company secretary John Pelton, a member of the driving crew, nervous, so he took a train home from Grand Rapids as a result. Pelton declared there was a hole in the side of the car he held onto while manager Hamilton was breaking a few speed records.
The only accident during the trip took place between Grand Rapids and Saginaw when they struck a hole in the road while traveling at a speed of 25 miles per hour. The crash threw the car into a ditch and bent the front axle. The crew was a short distance from Cedar Springs and took the axle there to be straightened. They were on their way after a five-hour delay.
The car was well received and there were many requests to purchase the automobile. In 1911 two cars were offered: the D. S. Touring Car and Roadster, and the Model R 20 Utility Roadster. The cars ranged in price between $1,000 and $1,500. In 1912 the company was reorganized due to financial difficulties. In 1913 a new model, the D Runabout and Touring Car was introduced and it was the last model built. A lack of stockholder investment to improve capital assets forced the plant to close in 1913. The assembly plant was located in the buildings which sit behind the city cemetery just south of town.
Ivan Polus, who resided in Whitefish, Montana, restored the only known remaining Gaylord 30 car. He found and purchased the vehicle in 1963 from a farmer who had stored it for many years in a barn near Ocqueoc in northeast Michigan.
Polus sold it to the Gaylord community and it is currently on display at the Gaylord Chamber of Commerce offices on West Main Street. The Gaylord 30 car committee raised over $20,000 to purchase the restored vehicle.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Step Back in Time: When the Gaylord Car Company came to town
