John Francis Dodge

John Francis Dodge (1864-1920) was an American automobile manufacturing pioneer who, with his younger brother Horace, founded the Dodge Brothers Company in Detroit in 1900, first as a machine shop supplying parts and engines to Ransom Olds and Henry Ford before the brothers began building their own automobiles under the Dodge name in 1914. Born in Niles, Michigan, John Dodge was generally the business and sales minded partner while Horace focused on engineering. The company they built became a major American automaker and the direct ancestor of the present day Dodge brand. He died in New York City in January 1920 during the influenza pandemic, at age fifty five, only months before his brother Horace also died.