Olds' Wagon Works — after 1900

Organised 1881, incorporated 1882 – wagon making ceased 1907 (the Businesses section carries the founding)

Course: Henry G. Olds organised the works in 1881 — his father Noble G. Olds, who settled in Fort Wayne in 1861, had established a lumber yard, machine works and wagon-wheel making before him — and it was incorporated in 1882 with $200,000 capital. The plant stood on the south side of Murray Street between Calhoun and Lafayette. The 1900 city directory gives the officers as H. G. Olds, president; W. H. Olds, vice-president and treasurer; and N. G. Olds, secretary. The family's companion corporation, N. G. Olds & Sons at the southeast corner of Lafayette and the Wabash Railway (incorporated 1882, capital $400,000), made the wheels: the 1889 county history credits it with 90,000 sets of wheels shipped in a year, upward of 7,000,000 spokes to be manufactured, and works covering five acres — more wheels for wagons, carriages and other vehicles, it claimed, than any other maker. The wagon works itself reached a peak output said to be about fifty vehicles a day, with about two hundred men employed at first. Henry G. Olds died in 1902.

Fate: In 1907 the works announced its end, in a period article quoted by wagon historians: "The Olds Wagon Works, one of the oldest manufacturing establishments in the city, will retire from business. Scarcity in timber, general rise in the price of skilled labor, with no corresponding increase in price in the finished product, are the reasons assigned. The plant will close as soon as the present raw material on hand is worked up or disposed of." Employment had dwindled to about seventy-five men, nearly all skilled wagon builders. All manufacturing of Olds brand wagons ceased in 1907. The c.1882 works building survived south of the railroad tracks near the Bass Foundry, in neglected condition in recent surveys. Despite the name, the firm had no connection with R. E. Olds or Oldsmobile.

Sources:

1. "How the Olds Wagon Works Met Its End in the Auto Age," Wheels That Won the West, 20 May 2015, quoting the 1907 closing article — the retirement, the reasons, the employment figures.
2. R. L. Polk, Fort Wayne city directories, 1889–90 and 1900 — incorporation, capital, plant location and officers.
3. Valley of the Upper Maumee River, Vol. II (1889) — the N. G. Olds & Sons wheel works and its output. Pioneers Resting in Historic Lindenwood (1989), Henry G. Olds sketch — the 1881 founding.
4. National Register documentation for the Pennsylvania Railroad Station (Baker Street Station), via historic-structures.com — the surviving c.1882 building.