Ransom E. Olds was born on this property on June 3, 1864. His parents, Pliny and Sarah Olds, had purchased the property with a home on it for $750 on June 13, 1863, a year before the birth of their fifth and last child, Ransom. Pliny later built a blacksmith shop behind the home and opened a machine shop with an experienced steam man, O.W. Price. Their shop, located 175 feet to the east on the southwest corner of Eagle and Main streets, manufactured small steam engines. In June 1869, the machine shop was sold for $500, and the homestead was sold for $2,000. With this capital and experience, Pliny later opened a successful steam and gas engine business in Lansing, Michigan. Ransom joined his father, and in 1897 his first horseless carriage evolved out of the company. On August 21, 1897, Olds co-founded the Olds Motor Vehicle Company in Lansing, Michigan, a forerunner of the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors. The curved dash model, built from 1900 to 1907, was the first car to carry the name Oldsmobile. With a 66-inch wheelbase, it weighed about 650 pounds, cost $650, and was powered by a one-cylinder, seven-horsepower engine capable of a speed of 20 miles per hour. It was the first commercially successful American-made automobile built using a progressive assemble system that led to modern mass-production methods.
