1917 Pierce-Arrow Model 48-B-4 Four-Passenger Touring

Starting with housewares – which were in good demand during the country’s westward expansion following the Civil War – he started his own company, George N. Pierce Company in 1878. In addition to housewares, the company was also noted for its iceboxes and birdcages.

A few years later, Pierce’s company responded to changing economic opportunities and began building bicycles, then an exciting new product and market that was ideally suited to the Pierce company’s experienced manufacturing staff and facilities. Bicycles sustained the Pierce company for the next half-decade, but the Buffalo entrepreneurs soon sighted its successor on the commercial horizon – the automobile. The company thereupon undertook a careful process of investigation and development, starting with steam power, then gasoline, scientifically and logically evaluating the advantages of both.

Pierce’s decision became clear in January 1901, when they hired David Fergusson to head their gasoline automobile design efforts. The first Fergusson-designed, De Dion-powered Pierce Motorettes were produced later that year. Fergusson took one on a tour of Pierce’s many bicycle dealers, an instant distribution network, which few other early automobile manufacturers could boast.