Built in the early 1880s as part of an unsuccessful effort to diversify the Flint Woolen Mills, this one-story mill was leased in 1886 by J. Dallas Dort and Billy Durant for the manufacture of road carts. By the end of its first year of operation, their Flint Road Cart Company had produced 4,000 vehicles. The company later expanded into four-wheeled carriages, wagons, and for a short time bicycles, and in 1917 it ceased carriage manufacturing as this building and other surrounding factories were converted to making the Dort Motor Car. Built in 1888, Durant-Dort Carriage Factory No. 1 reflected the dramatic growth of the Flint Road Cart Company as it became the Durant-Dort Carriage Company. During the 1890s the company expanded its Blue Ribbon line to include Webster Vehicle farm wagons, the Victoria Vehicle Company's mail-order business, and the Diamond Buggy Company. By 1900, Durant-Dort was the largest volume producer of horse-drawn vehicles in the United States, and in 1906, its peak year, it employed 1,000 people and produced 56,000 vehicles.