GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — In American automotive history, no name stands above Henry Ford. The engineer/industrialist helped change how the world moved. And even though he was in the field from its early days, Ford wasn’t the only genius to develop the automobile. He wasn’t even the first person to build one in Detroit.
That honor belongs to Charles B. King, and the 130th anniversary of his first test drive on Motor City streets is coming up this week.
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King and his assistant, Oliver Barthel, made the famous drive on March 6, 1896. The vehicle reportedly went about 5 mph, leaving a shop on St. Antoine Street near the Detroit River. They traveled north and turned on Jefferson Avenue and then, to paraphrase Frank Beckmann and Ernie Harwell, went right down Woodward.
It’s a small footnote for what would become the city’s defining industry…