Incorporated after the coming of the automobile, this plant at 701 May moved to the 700 block of East Saginaw to become one of the titans of local industry. It was started as Michigan Wheel, then W.K. Prudden Co, and is today commonly referred to as Motor Wheel. Eventually conglomerating Lansing Spoke and Auto Body, Prudden was of the city's premier businesses at the turn of the twentieth century, and because of its adaptability was one of the most successful after the coming of the automobile. The company began as a manufacture of wooden-spoked wheels and by the time of Motor Wheel was producing a line of automobile and truck wheels, hubs and flanges, brake drums and disks, rims, and "stampings of all kinds," and boasted "largest exclusive manufactures of wheels for motor driven vehicles in the world."
