The Kalamazoo Motor Vehicle Company

Makers of the “Kalamazoo” Auto Truck

The “Kalamazoo” Auto Truck was the brainchild of Frank G. Clark of Lansing, Michigan. Clark was a close associate of Ransom E. Olds and was instrumental in helping to build one of Olds’ first horseless carriages. Although his firm was active in Kalamazoo for only a couple of years, Frank Clark had deep roots in the automotive industry, and his “Kalamazoo” brand trucks were a highlight of early commercial vehicle manufacturing.

Frank G. Clark

Born in Lansing in 1866, Frank Gunnison Clark was the son of Albert and Hannah Ellen (Gunnison) Clark. He attended Lansing Public Schools and graduated in 1890 from Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University) with a degree in engineering. He became assistant superintendent of Clark & Company, Lansing’s largest manufacturer of carriages, wagons, sleighs and cutters, which was founded after the Civil War by Frank’s father, Albert Clark. In 1893, he married Harriet “Hattie” Anderson, a bright young woman from Colon in St. Joseph County, with a keen eye for business.

In 1896, Ransom E. Olds called upon Frank Clark to design and build a buggy-like body for Olds’ first gasoline-powered automobile. Olds felt a machine with a familiar carriage-like body would appeal to buyers, and he knew that Frank Clark was in a position to make that happen. After the Olds Motor Vehicle Company was founded in August 1897, Clark became a stockholder for a brief time, although he would part ways with Olds in the late 1890s at his father’s insistence.

By 1902, the elder Clark had retired, and Frank Clark had established his own automobile manufacturing company, producing a one-cylinder runabout called the Clarkmobile, but success was elusive. Production ceased in 1904 and Clark sold the business. After his father’s death in 1905, Clark established the Clark Power Wagon Company, one of the nation’s first commercial motor truck companies, and began manufacturing four-cylinder gasoline-powered trucks.

In 1909, he sold the family carriage business and made another attempt at producing automobiles by forming the Clark Motor Car Company. The Clark automobile again proved unsuccessful and after a two-year production run, the company went out of business. Unlike his automobiles, however, Clark’s trucks had proved reliable, and in 1911, he formed Clark & Company and began manufacturing a new line of heavy-duty trucks.

Kalamazoo Motor Vehicle Company

After two years in Lansing, in 1913, Clark moved the firm to Kalamazoo and changed its name to the Kalamazoo Motor Vehicle Company. With initial capital of $35,000, Clark set up shop in the former Thomas Clarage & Son foundry building at the corner of North Church Street and Kalamazoo Avenue, where he began assembling his newly rebranded “Kalamazoo” trucks. During their tenure in Kalamazoo, Frank Clark was the company president, his wife Harriet was vice president, and his mother, Hannah E. Clark, served as secretary and treasurer.

The “Kalamazoo” trucks were sturdy vehicles, assembled from some of the best available components by a variety of suppliers. Each unit would feature a 30-horsepower motor from the Rutenber Motor Company of Chicago, with a Bosch high-tension magneto, Spicer universal joints, Hyatt roller bearings, Sheldon axles, and a B.V. Covert & Co. sliding gear transmission mounted on a 2,500-pound steel chassis with a 110-inch wheelbase. The trucks had a capacity of one-and-a-half tons and sold for $1,800 (roughly $59,000 today). The first made-in-Kalamazoo model appeared on local streets in November 1913.

The “Kalamazoo” Auto Truck

By 1914, the automobile business was booming. The Kalamazoo Motor Vehicle Company attracted “a great deal of attention” (Gazette) at the Kalamazoo Auto Show with an exhibit of its one-and-a-half ton “Kalamazoo” trucks. The Emmerson Truck and Storage Company of Battle Creek, the Battle Creek Roofing and Manufacturing Company, and the Battle Creek Trucking Company, along with well-known Kalamazoo draymen Josiah Vickery and Gary Peters, all placed orders for immediate delivery of the newly designed model. During the United Style Show and Retailer’s Exposition in March, a “Kalamazoo” truck led a parade of vehicles through the city streets while carrying the 18-piece A.U.V. Band.  The company expected to produce at least 200 vehicles during its second year of operation in Kalamazoo, although Clark later stated that his firm made just 25 vehicles during its first year in Kalamazoo and another 70 during its second year of operation.

During the summer of 1914, Clark expanded his business and began manufacturing trailers to go along with his “Kalamazoo” brand trucks, which greatly expanded the truck’s capacity for long hauls. The first trailer was completed in late July and was delivered to the Hawthorne Paper Company in Kalamazoo, already a “Kalamazoo” truck customer. Each trailer could carry 3 tons of payload, giving the truck/trailer combo a four-and-one-half ton combined capacity. In November, the firm received an order for 40 two-ton trucks to be used by the English army for its expanding military operations in France and Belgium during the early stages of the First World War.

“The trailers have been tested and found desirable and feasible. By experiment we have found that one of our trucks with trailer attached, both fully loaded, can make satisfactory progress on high gear over the average country road, while in low gear the worst kind of roads are no obstacle.”

—Frank G. Clark, Kalamazoo Gazette, 6 December 1914

Columbia Motor Truck and Trailer Company

By the fall of 1915, the company was struggling to meet the demand for its new 1916 model one-and-a-half ton and two-ton trucks, as well as its mammoth four-ton special order model. Midway through the year, Clark changed the name of his company to the Columbia Motor Truck and Trailer Company as he searched for larger quarters to accommodate his growing business. Clark clearly stated that he wished to remain in Kalamazoo, but with his lease on North Church Street set to expire in September, a more favorable offer came for a five-acre site in Pontiac, near Detroit. The move was made and evidently it was just in time. Within months, the firm received an order for 900 trucks from a firm in Buffalo, New York, which alone amounted to more than $1 million (nearly $30 million today).

Frank Clark led the company in Pontiac until his retirement in 1929. The Clarks returned to the Lansing area and made their residence in Mason, although Frank maintained close contact with the firm throughout his retirement. Harriet Clark passed away in July 1950 at the age of 79 and Frank Clark died in August 1952 at the age of 85. Both were buried in the family plot at Mt. Hope Cemetery in Lansing.

Written by Keith Howard, Kalamazoo Public Library Staff, December 2025