Horace E. Dodge and John F. Dodge

Quick Facts
Horace E. Dodge
  • In full: Horace Elgin Dodge
  • Born: May 17, 1868, Niles, Michigan, U.S.
  • Died: December 10, 1920, Palm Beach, Florida
John F. Dodge
  • In full: John Francis Dodge
  • Born: October 25, 1864, Niles, Michigan, U.S.
  • Died: January 14, 1920, New York, New York
John and Horace DodgeThe Dodge brothers riding in the back of their first production model, c. 1914.

Horace E. Dodge and John F. Dodge were American brothers and automobile manufacturers who founded the Dodge Brothers Company and invented one of the first all-steel cars in America.

Bicycles were the first vehicles produced by the Dodge brothers. In 1901 they opened a machine shop in Detroit, making stove parts and, later, auto parts. The Dodge Brothers Company in 1910 established a large auto-parts plant in Hamtramck, Michigan. There the brothers made engines and other auto parts for the Ford Motor Company and for Olds Motor Works.

In 1913 they began producing their own automobiles, and the first Dodge automobile appeared on November 14, 1914. Horace Dodge was responsible for a number of manufacturing innovations, including an oven that could bake enamel onto steel auto bodies. By 1920, the year in which both brothers died, Dodge was one of the industry’s largest companies. The Dodge concern was purchased by Chrysler Corporation in 1928 and remains a division of Chrysler.

(Read Lee Iacocca’s Britannica entry on Chrysler.)

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.