John and Horace Dodge ran their machine shop at Hastings Street and Monroe Avenue, where a casino parking garage now stands, and the first Fords on the road began there. The brothers had made bicycles in Windsor, opened a shop in the Boydell Building on Beaubien in 1900, and supplied engines and transmissions to Ransom Olds before moving to a larger plant on the corner by 1903. In February 1903 they contracted to build 650 chassis for Henry Ford at $250 apiece, and they took the risk with him, retooling their shop and later accepting a ten percent stake in the new Ford Motor Company in return for $7,000 in forgiven bills and $3,000 more. John's temper in particular was notorious. By one history the Monroe shop was the largest machine shop in Detroit, and the brothers left it for a new plant in Hamtramck in 1910. In July 1913 they gave Ford a year's notice, and the first Dodge car reached the road in November 1914. They kept the shares, and when Ford stopped paying special dividends to fund the Rouge, they sued and won, in the case still taught to law students as Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. In July 1919 Ford bought them out for $25 million. Both brothers died the following year, John in January 1920 and Horace that December.
Getting there
42.3366, -83.0394
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