Wayside Exhibit Program – Clark Catalog (NE corner Grand and Washtenaw)
Began before Bement was A. Clark & Co (in 1865), and though not as enormously profitable or renown, pioneer Albert Clark would grow his company out of a farrier shop to be one of the city’s largest manufactures of fine carriages. Albert would train his son, Frank, in the trade, and who would for a time mirror the career of R. E. Olds. Pictured is the cover of the 1881 catalog.
Clark Factory
The three-story factory was at the corner of Grand and Washtenaw. It was 150' x 125' and shared the banks of the Grand River with so many of the early factories who took advantage of the harvest of lumber floated up or downstream to be milled. Notice, as with most other factories of the time, the number of windows that would take best advantage of natural light in the days before a centralized lighting source, and compare to today's architecture of corrugated metal-boxed factories that rely exclusively on electric light.
