Christopher Columbus Smith, 1861 - 1939, created the sport of motor-boating in 1893 by installing a motor in a wooden boat and launching it in the St. Clair River at Algonac, three years before Henry Ford installed one in the first motor-car. Chris and Anna raised a large family whose members helped create the world's largest boat-building industry, with factories in four countries, and they built the first of their friend Gar Wood's champion race-boats, with Chris's sons sharing the cockpit of Gar's boats. A motor-boat entrepreneur, Christopher Smith introduced a new leisure-time sport and, with his family, made Algonac the center of a foremost and large boat-building enterprise. Garfield Arthur "Gar" Wood, 1880-1971, a world motorboat racing champion, ingenious inventor, industrialist, and boatbuilder, became known for racing with two little teddy bears aboard, a good luck Christmas gift from Mrs. Wood. Combining airplane and marine technology, he built and raced the world's fastest boats, then built a fleet of top quality mahogany boats for other sportsmen, classic boats still in action around the world. He earned fame and fortune as an inventor and builder of practical applications for hydraulics, and his son Gar Jr. also became a racing champion. Gar Wood and his mentor Chris Smith are buried in Algonac's cemetery.