Durant-Dort Carriage Company Office
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Durant-Dort Carriage Company Office
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| Location | 316 W. Water St., Flint, Michigan |
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| Coordinates | 43°1′2″N 83°41′46″W / 43.01722°N 83.69611°WCoordinates: 43°1′2″N 83°41′46″W / 43.01722°N 83.69611°W |
| Built | 1895 |
| NRHP Reference # | 75000943 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | September 2, 1975 |
| Designated NHL | June 2, 1978 |
The Durant-Dort Carriage Company Office is a historic office building located at 316 West Water Street in Flint, Michigan. This office building was the focal point of William C. Durant's efforts in building first carriages and then automobiles, and is the only extant building closely associated with Durant. It was here that pivotal decisions were made in the development and financing of the Buick Motor Company, the beginning of Chevrolet, and Durant's founding of General Motors. The Durant-Dort Carriage Company Office was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1978.
William Durant was born in 1861 in Boston, Massachusetts, the grandson of lumber millionaire and Michigan governor Henry H. Crapo. His parents separated in 1871, and William moved with his mother to Flint, where they lived quite comfortably thanks to William's grandfather. After dropping out of high school just before graduation, Durant worked for a time for the family lumber business as a millhand, then moved into sales. He was a director of one of Flint's leading banks, and began selling cigars, real estate, and patent medicine, before finally deciding on insurance. By the mid-1880s, he ran one of the largest insurance agencies in mid-Michigan.
Josiah Dallas Dort (a.k.a. J. Dallas Dort or J.D. Dort) was born in Inkster, Michigan in 1861. His father was a well-to-do country squire and merchant, well connected politically, who died in 1871 when Josiah was ten. Dort left school at age 15, to help his mother in business and to work at a crockery firm. In 1881, he began working at a Flint hardware store, and within a few years opened his own hardware store. Dort is the namesake of Flint area trunkline Dort Highway (a.k.a. M-54).
The origin of the Durant-Dort Carriage Company came in 1886, when William C. Durant rode in a friend's spring-suspension road cart. This cart was built by the Coldwater Road Cart Company of Coldwater, Michigan. Impressed with the smoothness of the ride, Durant obtained the patent and manufacturing rights to the cart for $2000, and with J. Dallas Dort, founded the Flint Road Car Company that same year. Dort, as president, handled manufacturing and administrative details for the firm, while Durant handled sales and promotion. The firm first had their offices located in Durant's insurance agency in downtown Flint. They leased a factory on Water Street, originally used by the Flint Woolen Mills, to produce road carts. The company sold 4000 carts its first year, and quickly grew from there. Under Durant's leadership, the company expanded by acquiring subsidiary companies that produced not only vehicles, but the components for vehicles as well.
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