Highlights Archives
Photographic History of Winther Motors
Martin P. Winther formed the Winther Motor and Truck Company in Kenosha in 1916. From 1916 to 1927, the company manufactured everything from four-wheel drive trucks to sporty automobiles, snow plows, rail cars and mechanical posthole diggers. With just an eighth-grade education, Martin Winther and his brother Anthony became prolific inventors, patenting almost 300 car- and truck-related mechanical devices in their lifetimes. The photographic history of the Winther Motor Company gives unusual insight into manufacturing at the time, and is the featured gallery this month from the Society's image database, Wisconsin Historical Images.
Although Detroit is known today as the home of the automobile industry, Wisconsin — and the southeastern corner of the state in particular — made many contributions to the industry in its earliest years. Both Martin and Anthony worked for the Thomas B. Jeffery Company, one of Wisconsin's most successful early automakers, which had begun producing its famous Rambler automobiles in 1902. Martin was instrumental in engineering the Jeffery Quad, a four-wheel drive truck used extensively by the U.S. military in World War I. When Charles Nash purchased the company in 1916 and decided to discontinue the production of trucks (Martin's main interest), Martin decided to strike out on his own and the Winther Motor and Truck Company was born.
These 1921 photographs include detailed interior shots of men working in the blacksmith shop, parts storeroom and assembly rooms, and men using belt-driven machines to construct vehicles and their internal parts. Others show Martin Winther and his staff in the business office as well as exterior images of the plant. Martin sold the company to H.P. Olsen in 1927 and went on to form the Dynamatic Corporation in Kenosha.
Learn more about automobiles in Wisconsin, including the development of suburbs and interstate highways, in our Wisconsin History Explorer.
:: Posted November 20, 2006
|
