John Francis Dodge (October 25, 1864 - January 14, 1920) was an American automobile manufacturing pioneer and co-founder of Dodge Brothers Company.
Dodge was born in Niles, Michigan where his father owned a foundry and machine shop. Dodge and his younger brother, Horace, were inseparable as children and as adults. The origins of the Dodge family lie in Stockport, England, where their ancestral home still stands.
In 1886 the Dodge family moved to ...
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John Francis Dodge (October 25, 1864 - January 14, 1920) was an American automobile manufacturing pioneer and co-founder of Dodge Brothers Company.
Dodge was born in Niles, Michigan where his father owned a foundry and machine shop. Dodge and his younger brother, Horace, were inseparable as children and as adults. The origins of the Dodge family lie in Stockport, England, where their ancestral home still stands.
In 1886 the Dodge family moved to Detroit, where John and Horace took jobs at a boiler maker plant. In 1894 they went to work as machinists at the Dominion Typograph Company in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. While Dodge was the sales-minded managerial type, his brother Horace was a gifted mechanic and inveterate tinkerer. Using a dirt-proof ball bearing Horace invented and patented, in 1897 Dodge arranged a deal for the brothers to join with a third-party investor to manufacture bicycles. Within a few years, they sold the bicycle business and in 1900 used the proceeds of the sale...
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