Dispatch Motor Car Company (1911 - 1923)

"Little notice was taken of the Dispatch Motor Car Company by the local press throughout the firm's relatively long existence, and only one Dispatch car was reported in the yearly Minnesota vehicle registration list before 1917. Nevertheless, the national publication Motor Age regularly carried descriptions of various models of the car, and local lists of auto manufacturers always mentioned the Dispatch Company. The firm first appeared in the City Directory in 1910, its office being in the New York Life Building. The one registration of a Dispatch in Minnesota was in 1911. In January of the next year Automobile magazine included the Dispatch in its buyer's guide. Two models, E and G, were availab

le in six body configurations, including a "rumble." Prices ranged from $700 to $1,000. In 1913 one-half-ton trucks, designated models L and N at $850 and $900, were added to the line."

"The year 1914 was a significant one for the Dispatch Company. At that time it moved its factory to 1200 Fourteenth Avenue Southeast and dropped the original two-cycle motor for a four-cycle, twenty-two-horsepower engine of Wisconsin manufacture. The vehicles produced by this firm were unusual in that, until 1918, they all used chain drive. The Dispatch Motor Car Company was listed in the City Directory until 1923 at the southeast Minneapolis address."

Continental Engine Manufacturing Company

"On January 15, 1914, Motor Age magazine announced the production of this car by the Continental Engine Manufacturing Company of Chicago at a plant located at 1200 Fourteenth Avenue Southeast in Minneapolis. No local notice of this car appeared, and the same plant building was occupied by the Dispatch Motor Car Company in that year."

Excerpted from "A Catalog of Minnesota-Made Cars and Trucks" by Alan Ominsky, Minnesota History (p. 98, 110) Fall 1972

(Mr. Ominsky is also a former Como resident)