The United States Motor Co. was organized in 1909 as a conglomerate of struggling auto-related companies, sort of like a far smaller, far less successful General Motors.
The company was incorporated Jan. 28, 1910, in New York with $16 million in capital, the equivalent of a whopping $562.4 million in 2025. That gave U.S. Motor plenty of cash to grow quickly by snatching up other companies. But at launch, it had the Maxwell-Briscoe Motor Co. plants at Tarrytown, N.Y., Providence, R.I., and Greencastle, Ind.; the Columbia Motor Car Co. factory at Hartford, Conn., and a number of auto part suppliers controlled by stockholders of Maxwell-Briscoe, such as the Exide Battery Co., Westchester Appliance Co. and Ajax Tire Co.
The man behind this venture was Benjamin Briscoe, chairman of the American Motor Car Manufacturers Association and head of Maxwell-Briscoe. His idea was that by uniting these smaller, unprofitable companies, they could reduce overhead costs and need for funding and return to profitability. A year after its founding, there were 11 companies under the U.S. Motor umbrella. There would eventually be 14: Alden-Sampson, Briscoe, Brush, Columbia, Courier, Dayton, Detroit, Gray Marine, Maxwell, Providence, Riker, Sampson, Stoddard and Thomas. Briscoe even tried to buy out Henry Ford, but was rebuffed.
In April 1910, U.S. Motors announced that it would build what was said to be the longest auto plant in the world in Detroit, 1,000 by 150 feet. Known as the Alden Sampson Detroit Plant, which U.S. Motors had just purchased for $200,000, or about $7 million in 2025. The factory was located at Carpenter Road and the Grand Trunk rail crossing.
Just a month later, there was a flurry of moves. News of the building of this terra cotta-sheathed sales and service building broke in May 1910. At the same time, U.S. Motors was absorbing the Gray Motor Co. and Briscoe Manufacturing, as well as Brush, whose Runabout was an incredibly popular car at the time.
For the garage and sales building, the company hired the firm Smith, Hinchman & Grylls at Woodward Avenue at Charlotte Street. The building replaced a house that was purchased from the R. Riche estate of Chicago and initially occupied by Maxwell-Briscoe and Columbia, as well as the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. It was completed in 1911.
That year, the company said it would make 15,000 cars and trucks, and that its 3,500 to 4,500 employees would be at capacity making Columbia, Stoddard-Dayton, Sampson, Maxwell and Brush cars and Sampson trucks.
In March 1912, it was reported that U.S. Motor had more than $10 million in sales in the previous six months. Things seemed to be going well. In actuality, however, things were pretty rough.
The $10 million in sales seemed like a big, flashy number, but sales don’t necessarily mean a profit. The company had some 14,000 employees building 52 models of cars under nine brands in 18 plants across the country, and they were being sold in 34 branches. The thing was, none of the models was truly profitable. Even the Brush Runabout had become an outmoded design shortly after the company’s acquisition. On top of that, having operations spread across Michigan, Connecticut, Ohio, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island made it difficult for Briscoe to keep on eye on everything at once.
By October 1912, U.S. Motors was in receivership, and Briscoe resigned as president, though retained his financial interest in the company. The banks appointed Walter E. Flanders of the Flanders Motor Co. of Detroit to serve as president and general manager. As part of the deal, U.S. Motor would absorb the Flanders company, assume all its debts and obligations and pay Walter Flanders a handsome cash bonus. Under the reorganization, Flanders was given $31 million, or about $1 billion in 2025, to turn things around.
Flanders reorganized U.S. Motor Co. as the Maxwell Automobile Co., discontinuing all over the other makes and selling off everything on the East Coast and transferring all production to Detroit. He also switched to using a single chassis to keep costs down and logistics simple. In April 1914, Maxwell "broke all past production records for both daily and monthly output," the Free Press wrote May 10, 1914, shipping 3,200 cars. The company also continued to service and provide new parts for cars that had been built by U.S. Motors. In 1917, Maxwell entered a partnership with Chalmers Motor Co. that saw the two automakers share a factory and assembly line.
"Mr. Flanders took a bankrupt concern and built it into one of the most successful automobile companies of the country," the Free Press wrote Sept. 24, 1916.
The success would not last, however, and Flanders left the company in 1918. With quality and sales both in a freefall, Maxwell and Chalmers followed U.S. Motor into receivership. Their creditors appointed Walter P. Chrysler in 1921 to take over, and by 1925, he had discontinued the two brands and reorganized the firm as the Chrysler Corp.
Meanwhile, back on Woodward Avenue and Charlotte, the former U.S. Motor Sales & Service Building became a Studebaker showroom in 1913, and then the home of the Highland Park Furniture & Carpet Co. from 1914 to 1919. Two years later, the Ajax Rubber Co., the tire company that had previously been part of the U.S. Motor holdings, took over.
After a brief vacancy during the Depression, the Garden Center Ballroom opened on the second floor in 1937 and remained popular into the mid-1950s. Various tenants would come and go, including the Villa Nova Cafe and Addison Barber Shop in the 1940s and the Prince Charles Men’s Shop in the ’50s.
Fast forward to the 2000s, and the building was home to the SereNgeti Gallery and the popular Source Style Apparel. In December 2013, however, the building was purchased by an entity affiliated with the Ilitch family’s Olympia Development Co. At the time, the building was still home to Source, as well as Snyder Wholesale. They were kicked out, and the building has sat empty since. Olympia has not announced any plans for the building or done anything with it save for securing it from trespass. It was rumored in late 2017 that Olympia was going to demolish the building, among others it owned, for additional surface-level parking lots to serve Little Caesars Arena. On Feb. 3, 2018, a protest was held at the U.S. Motor Co. Building, urging the Ilitch family to spare it from demolition.
As of June 2026, the building still stands, though its future is no less clear.