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Durant-Dort Carriage Company Office

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1895–1896; 1976–1986 restoration, SSOE, Inc. 316 Water St.
  • (Photograph by Balthazar Korab)

On the north side of the Flint River, once the site of early sawmills, soap works, sash and door factories, textile mills, and carriage works, is the Durant-Dort Carriage Company Office. It is considered to be the 1908 birthplace of General Motors. William C. Durant (1861–1949) and J. Dallas Dort (1861–1925) erected the building in 1895, enlarged the roof in 1900, and increased it from two to three stories in 1906, as they transformed the Durant-Dort Carriage Company into one of the nation's largest manufacturers of horse-drawn vehicles and directed the early destiny of Buick. Now a National Historic Landmark, the building is restored. With its early-twentieth-century offices and public meeting space, the building serves as the focal point of Carriage Town Historic Neighborhood. This thirty-block neighborhood that includes the Charles W. Nash House (c. 1890; 307 Mason Street) is undergoing revitalization with public and private financing. The Durant-Dort Carriage Company Foundation leases the office to the Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Genesee County Historical Society.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Kathryn Bishop Eckert
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Data

What's Nearby

Riverbank Park
Flint Central Business District and Vicinity
University Pavilion of University of Michigan–Flint (Waterstreet Pavilion)
Northbank Center (Industrial Savings Bank)
Flint Elks Lodge Building

Citation

Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "Durant-Dort Carriage Company Office", [Flint, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MI-01-GS7.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Michigan

Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 334-334.

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