Walter Lorenzo Marr was born in Lexington, MI and went on to become an important figure in automotive history. He was not only the head engineer for Buick, but he also started his own car company and invented and developed products in the auto, marine, and aircraft industries.
what can i see today?
It is not known exactly where the Marr family lived in Lexington. You can find out more about the history of Lexington and Sanilac County by visiting the Sanilac County Historic Village & Museum in Port Sanilac. Address: 228 South Ridge Street, Port Sanilac, MI 48469 Phone: (810) 622-9946 Website: http://www.sanilaccountymuseum.org/
The Museum also offers Model T tours...
the story
Walter Lorenzo Marr was born in Lexington, MI on August 14th, 1865. His father died when he was just eight years old but the Marr family carried on having no idea of the impact Walter would eventually make on the automotive world...
In 1882 Marr began his career and became an apprentice at John Walker & Sons in East Tawas...
In 1887, he started with Wickes Brothers, an engineering firm involved with sawmills and steamboats. In 1888, while there, started experimenting with engines and built his first engine that same year....a single-cylinder, four-cycle, water-cooled model. Marr stayed with the company until 1896...
Marr went to work for himself and began producing the Marr bicycle in 1896 in East Saginaw at 215 South Washington Avenue. He had several different model engines in his shop which gave him the ability to study what other inventors of that day were producing. It was this experience along with his experimentation with his earlier engine which allowed him to produce a new engine in 1898. This model had "novel electric ignition features" which was one of the first spark advance mechanisms...
Two years later he moved his bicycle shop to Detroit. It is shown here in the 1899 Directory at 198 Grand River Ave...
In 1899 Marr sold his bicycle business and went to work for a short time for the Detroit Shipbuilding Company. It turns out a young man named Henry Ford also worked there in the early 1880's. Marr and Ford also had something else in common...they joined the fight against George Selden who had "patented" the automobile and were charging every company in that day a royalty to produce their own vehicle regardless of appearance. The case was ultimately won enabling Marr and others to avoid making Selden a rich man and helped Ford to bring the automobile to the common man...
Walter Marr started producing automobiles in 1899 with a four-cylinder gasoline motor-driven two-passenger tricycle. In 1900 he built a second vehicle while working for Buick. David Dunbar Buick had started in the plumbing business with his firm Buick and Sherwood in Detroit. He was responsible for placing white porcelain on bathroom fixtures and held several related patents. This Buick bath tub sits in the Durant-Dort Carriage Company Office in Flint...
Buick would set up a another shop in Detroit, still in conjunction with Buick and Sherwood, to build gasoline engines in 1897. In 1899, Buick sold the plumbing business to the firm that would later be known as American Standard...
By 1900, Buick had set his sights to pursue engines full-time and build an operational vehicle. He set up the Buick Auto-Vim and Power Company in a shop at the corner of Beaubien & Lafayette...a building which still stands today. Two brothers also had a shop here that would go on to shape the automotive world...John and Horace Dodge...
Buick needed help to make his vision come true and recruited Marr as well as Eugene Richard. While he was there, Marr built his second vehicle which is believed to be the first Buick in 1900. This was the first of 3 stints with Buick and he stayed with the company until the Spring of 1901. Eugene Richard would start with the firm just after Marr's departure. He had taken an existing overhead valve engine design from pump engines in France and redesigned it so drastically that he was able to patent it. Although it is not known of the exact timing and who actually came up with the actual Buick version of the valve-in-head engine, it is safe to say that Buick, Marr, and Richard all helped develop it. It is Richard's name that bears the patent as well as a patent to improve the spark plug for Buick...
Marr came back to the company again in 1902. Buick had once again changed the company name to the Buick Manufacturing Company and was located at 416-418 Howard in Detroit...
In 1902, Walter Marr left Buick again and started his own car company called The Marr Auto Car Company in Detroit and subsequently filed articles of association in 1903. Marr designed the car but they were built in Elgin, Illinois by Fauber Manufacturing. The company took orders at the 1902 Chicago Auto Show for more than 500 vehicles and began to fill the orders. Unfortunately the plant burned to the ground in 1903 and took all the vehicles with it. One complete vehicle did survive and was purchased by the Henry Ford Museum in 1935 and now is owned by descendants of the Marr family...
Even with the advancements that Buick had made, the company was basically insolvent by 1903. Benjamin Briscoe would bail the company out by May of that year along with his brother Frank who owned a large sheet metal firm in Detroit. The company was renamed the Buick Motor Company and would be given back to Buick once the debt was resolved. Briscoe, who eventually went into the car business himself, was looking to sell enough Buicks to make his money back. If this plan did not work, he would hopefully merge Buick with Maxwell who was also making vehicles and ultimately went on to become Chrysler. Frank had went to Flint to visit relatives and was contacted by a real estate broker named Dwight Stone told him of the Flint Wagon Works. They were a carriage manufacturing company looking to get into automobile manufacturing to diversify their business. The deal was made September 3rd, 1903 and Buick the company along with David Buick and his team were headed to Flint. On January 16th of 1904, the old Buick company had been dissolved and the new Flint version had begun...
By April of 1904 Marr had come back to Buick and was trying to convince James H. Whiting, who was the President of the Wagon Works, to manufacture vehicles full-time. Whiting agreed that if Marr could make a run to Detroit and back, he and Buick could start making vehicles. In June an automobile was made and on July 9th Marr and Thomas Buick(David's son) made the trip. They are pictured here on that trip aboard that first production Buick...
Photos Courtesy of the Sloan Museum
The company, although successful in some aspects, was bleeding money just like the first few years and Whiting knew just the man to turn it around. On November 1st, 1904, William(Billy) Durant took over Buick and his successes not only made the company flourish but also ultimately funded the creation of General Motors and started the industrial boom of Flint. Statues of William Durant and J. Dallas Dort, founders of General Motors, stand outside the original office building and factory in Flint...
Walter Marr was experimenting right from the beginning with vehicles and racing trying different engines and body types. The first recorded competition of a Buick was in Grosse Pointe, MI on August 27th, 1904 with the car finishing third and it was just the beginning. The early days of winning races was a way many car companies used to promote sales of vehicles and parts. One member of the team, Barney Oldfield, was a famous racer helping the Ford Motor Company get started, breaking speed records in Ormond Beach, Florida, and touring the country racing Lincoln Beachey in an airplane. He later went into business with Harvey Firestone to make tires...
Other members of the race team included Bob Burman and Louis Chevrolet. Chevrolet and Burman would race two "Buick Bugs" in 1910 that broke several records. Burman's bug still survives and is owned by the Sloan Museum in Flint...
Photos Courtesy of the Detroit Public Library
Walter Marr was the racing team manager until it was abandoned in 1911. His influence certainly helped Buick and ultimately General Motors become the number one auto maker it is today. Marr held different patents throughout his lifetime for automobiles and some for an airplane and related components...
Marr designed an airplane called the Flint Flyer which was produced by the L.A.W. Aeroplane Company located in Flint, MI. The photos shown here are from 1910 at the Atlanta Speedway...
Photos Courtesy of the Detroit Public Library
In 1914 Marr built a prototype Buick Cycle Car. The cycle car craze went on from about 1913-1917 with many companies building these small cars but the fad faded as the cars were not practical. The prototype still exists and is owned by descendants of the Marr family...
Marr had developed some health problems and moved his family to Signal Mountain, TN in 1914. This article shows that Marr would continue his work there although it seems no formal building was ever erected...
Marr remained Buick's chief engineer until 1918 and as an engineering consultant until 1923. His impact on the automobile, racing, and aircraft industries are still being felt today.
references
Factory One General Motors Museum
Sloan Museum Archives
Michigan State Gazetteer Directory-1896-1899
Annual Report of Inspection of Factories In Michigan-1898
Joint Documents of the State of Michigan-1896/1897