Factory One Marks GM’s Founding Location

FLINT, MI – A historic 2-story red-brick building here on the banks of the now-infamous Flint River seeks to preserve a piece of automotive heritage while reminding visitors this Michigan city – and this specific location – marks the birthplace of General Motors more than 100 years ago.

GM this week opens the Durant-Dort Factory One in downtown Flint following a 4-year, $3 million-plus renovation project that involved restoring the exterior, replacing the roof and stripping the interior down to its original walls, wooden beams, trusses and supports.

Restoration work included shoring up a floodwater-damaged foundation, replacing windows and doors and installing new heating and cooling, electrical, plumbing, lighting and communications technology.

The building, once home to the Flint Road Cart Co., a carriage-making venture started by William Durant and Josiah Dort in 1886, is the factory that produced the first Buicks upon which Durant founded GM in 1908.

“This is where Durant began his business,” says Kevin Kirbitz, operations manager and “chief storyteller” for Factory One. “Most automotive historians call Factory One the birthplace of General Motors.”

On hand for the grand opening was Mark Reuss, GM executive vice president-Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, who championed the restoration and worked with Kirbitz on the project starting in 2012.

“Factory One sparked the global auto industry and was a catalyst in the formation of General Motors,” Reuss says.  “It preserves the stories of the early visionaries who built a brand-new industry in this city, within the very walls of where it happened.”

In its modern interpretation, Factory One houses a 300-person reception space on its main floor along with an archive containing a 100,000-item collection of documents, photographs and artifacts detailing early GM history and the history of carriage-making in Flint.

The archive was established at Kettering University (formerly General Motors Institute) in 1974 by historian Richard P. Scharchburg and now moves to a climate-controlled space in Factory One where it will be accessible to the general public as well as researchers.

Kettering President Robert McMahan says moving the archive to Factory One opens up a formerly “hidden treasure” to the Flint community and automotive historians.

Among the documents in the archive is a 1908 attorney’s letter to Durant suggesting the name “General Motors” for his soon-to-be-established corporation, McMahan notes.

“Anyone interested in history can get absolutely lost in there,” he says.

The collection complements other nearby historical archives at Kettering, the University of Michigan-Flint and the Sloan Museum.

The second floor of the restored building is reserved for office space, working areas and conference rooms for GM employees.

Among those in attendance at the grand opening event was Dallas C. Dort, grandson of one of the building’s namesakes, J. Dallas Dort, and Daniel “Duke” Durant Merrick, great-grandson of GM’s founder.

“It’s just wonderful that they’re restoring their history – and that we’re a part of it,” Dort says. “It’s very satisfying to see General Motors honor their own history.”

Longtime Buick and GM historian Lawrence R. Gustin, a former Flint Journal writer and editor and retired Buick assistant public relations director, agreed: “It’s great that Mark Reuss chose to restore this place and help certify the fact that Flint is the birthplace of General Motors.”

In addition to its investment in Factory One, located across the street from the building that houses the Durant-Dort Carriage Co. Foundation which GM supports, in 2015 the corporation donated $2 million to Kettering to create a powertrain laboratory in Flint. The GM Foundation also donated $2 million for the Kettering University GM Mobility Research Center to test and develop driverless car systems.

[email protected] @bobgritzinger