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Hugh Lyons & Co. - 700
South St. Lansing, MI (former James Potter Furniture Co.)
Established by James Potter in 1894, the company made special bodies for
commercial vehicles as well as auto bodies and equipment. By 1920, it was
the largest firm of its kind in the country. (originally established in 1886
but focus changed to auto bodies in 1894).
Hugh Lyons was an initial 1904 investor of the REO Motor Company. Hugh Lyons
& Company manufactured truck cabs and bodies for REO and other truck
manufactures until REO began production of their own commercial bodies in
1930. Hugh Lyons was mayor of Lansing from 1904 - 1907 and is buried in
Lansing's Mount Hope Cemetery. The Hugh Lyons company moved to this location
in 1902, the former site of a furniture factory established in 1889 by James
Potter. Once comprised of roughly ten major structures – including a
workshop, dry kiln, storage, punch press, mill and paint shop, and machine
shops – only one building still remains. Built in 1922, with an addition in
1924, it is a steel frame and reinforced concrete factory building. It has
eight-inch curtain walls of brick and steel sash. In the 1930s it was used
for woodworking, finishing, and cabinetry. Hugh Lyons & Company was
established in 1888 and incorporated in 1894. When Lyons opened his Lansing
plant, it was only the second of its kind in the state (the other was in
Detroit). In addition to showcases, the company manufactured store fixtures
and retail display items, as well as their patented hat conformator, which
claimed to shape a hat precisely to the buyer's head, thereby making a new
hat feel as comfortable as an old one. While the company continued to
produce display fixtures, a portion of the plant was renovated in the early
1920s for production of commercial truck bodies. Hugh Lyons & Company made
Reo truck bodies until 1930, when that company began producing their bodies
in-house. Hugh Lyons manufactured other specialty bodies for trucks and
commercial vehicles as well, and marketed the Way Automatic Dump Body in the
mid-1920s. As a prominent businessman and public figure, Hugh Lyons served
two terms as mayor of Lansing. Only a small portion of the manufacturing
complex remains today.
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