Automotive plant in the 1900's

[rcscjg]

I was going to post a topic in this but found this:
Taken From The Toluca Star Newspaper
March 14, 1902 - Around About Us

Streator has secured a new factory. An automobile plant at Anderson, Ind., owing to the inadequate supply of gas, offered to remove to Streator if its citizens would donate three to five acres of land and building 36 x 200 feet in dimensions and two stories high. The company guarantees to employ fifty men the first year and one hundred the second and third years. The citizens of Streator accepted the proposition and will donate a building site and $10,000 for a new building.


On this thread:
streatorland.proboards30.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1169164927

When I was younger a couple buddies & I were walking around over by the tracks behind Anderson Field & we seen an old building with old rusty cars inside was this the old site? My dad told me later that we used to have a plant here but it was already closed by the time he moved here from Oil City PA.
Do any of you have any information on this plant? What auto maker was it? How long did it last? Any old pics? I did notice too that the company was moving here from Anderson Ind. Is this just a coincidence the name of the city they moved from is the name of the land that the plant was built on or near? (If this was the site for the plant)
Sorry for all the questions, Streator's history just fascinates me.

[DumDave]

Barley Motor Car Co. was a manufacturer of automobiles in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It manufactured the Roamer automobile (1916-29) and, briefly, the Barley (1922-24) and the Pennant (1924-25).

In 1913, Albert C. Barley bought the assets of the Streator Motor Car Co., which was put into receivership in 1911. Streator was itself the product of the Erie Motor Carriage Co. and had been manufacturing the Halladay automobile since 1905. Barley's new company was called Barley Manufacturing Co. and he reopened the factory at Streator, Illinois and continued to produce the Halladay for a few years

[DumDave]

In 1909, L.P. Halladay, the owner of the Streator Motor Car Co, and name sake of it's product, the "HALLADAY" car, sold his business with a 1/3 interest in the Streator Metal Stamping Co. He held several patents that were used both by that Company as well as the Streator Motor Car Co. In 1912, he was building a new plant for his very own L.P. Halladay Company. It involved working with metal. Earlier in life, he worked with his father building bicycles in Marion, Ind. He held some 57 patents including a music rack, Carper sweeper and baby go-cart as well as car related patents for bumpers, side lever sets, rear tire irons, & oil can holders.
-Dave

[galsal]

Page 130 of Biography in Black tells us that in 1925 Andy Anderson, a local printer, announced that he would finance the rebuilding of a recreation center on the forty-acre city owned plot north of town. Andersons plans called for a new golf course, a children's playground, a baseball diamond with clubhouse, and tennis courts. I don't find in the story if anything other than the golf course was ever built. That is how Anderson Field got it's name.

[DumDave]

I have an copy of an old map from the historical society. It shows a plant that looks like the picture I found of the Streator Motor Car Company. It appears to be located south of town in the Smith-Douglas area..... I found the picture in a book sold at the Society called "The Story of Streator".
-Dave

[John]

Here is an old photo of the Streator Motor Car Company.