DID YOU KNOW? C. R. Patterson & Sons: First Black Automobile Manufacturer in US
Built by the first African American-owned automobile manufacturer, The C.R. Patterson and Sons Company, the Patterson-Greenfield automobile (pictured here) debuted in 1915 and had a four-cylinder Continental engine, comparable to that of the Ford Model T.
(Source: Wikipedia)
C.R PATTERSON, BORN SLAVE, BUILT AUTOMOBILES BEFORE HENRY FORD
Some of the finest buggies made in the late 1800s came out of a small, black-owned company in Ohio. Charles Rich Patterson’s Company later made motor vehicles, and history, by founding the country’s only African-American-owned automobile manufacturing company.
To hear Tom Smith tell it, had Patterson been a white man, Greenfield, Ohio could have been another Detroit. Smith – car dealer and life-long resident of Greenfield – has spent years compiling mementos and information about the historical family.
Just before the Civil War, Patterson left slavery and … READ IN FULL
