Centaur Film Company

The Centaur Film Company is a defunct American motion picture production company founded in 1907 in Bayonne, New Jersey, by William and David Horsley. It was the first independent motion picture production company in the United States. In 1909 the company added a West Coast production unit, the Nestor Film Company, which established the first permanent film studio in Hollywood, California, in 1911. The company was absorbed by the Universal Film Manufacturing Company in 1912.

The Centaur Film Company was the first independent motion picture production company in the United States. It was formed in 1907 by David Horsley, operator of a successful bicycle business and pool parlor in Bayonne, New Jersey, with his brother William Horsley and Charles Gorman, a screenwriter for the Biograph Company. The company's first production was The Cowboy's Escape, a one-reel short film released September 15, 1908. In 1910 Gorman sold his interest in the company back to the Horsleys, and William Horsley—a silent partner for Centaur's first three years—assumed an active role running the company's laboratory.

"The Horsleys had a studio in New Jersey," recalled cinematographer Charles Rosher, who went to work for Centaur in 1909. "Well, I won't call it a studio. It was really nothing but a shop, with a lot of bathtubs for developing the film. They used to go out and make pictures with an improvised camera—an infringement of the Motion Picture Patents Company. This brought the Horsleys into the patents war, and they became the first independent producers."

Actors working for Centaur included Francis Ford, who joined the company around 1908 and inspired his younger brother John Ford to also enter the film industry. Motion picture industry pioneer Al Christie began his filmmaking career at Centaur in 1909.

By 1910, the operation was producing three movies a week, including the Mutt and Jeff comedies.

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