By By JOHN EBY / Niles Daily Star
DOWAGIAC – Niles historian Donna Turtle Ochenryder remembers 1908 as "quite a year" – and not because it was the Chicago Cubs' last World Series title.
Henry Ford needed financing to build an assembly plant in Detroit.
He journeyed to New York and met with Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt agreed to lend the necessary capital for the factory provided Ford built in Toledo, Ohio.
Vanderbilt "had New York Central under control" and thought the Ohio location would strengthen his position, she said Wednesday night in a talk at The Museum at Southwestern Michigan College on railroads coming to southwest Michigan on Oct. 1, 1848.
Ford balked at the string attached to the offer.
He returned to Michigan empty-handed.
Enter Niles' Dodge brothers – John (1864-1920) and Horace (1868-1926).
"They were born and raised in Niles, graduated from Niles High School, worked in their father's machine shop and eventually migrated and ended up in Detroit. They had a machine shop and a bicycle business," Ochenryder said.
"They were friends with Henry Ford and they went to him in 1908 and offered to build engines for his Model T and gave him an open line of credit. Not many people know that.
"When you stop to think about it, the fate of Michigan owes a great deal of gratitude, if you will, to the Dodge brothers because they were the ones responsible for keeping Henry Ford in the state of Michigan."