The incubator of American industry The genesis of the garage occurred when Henry Ford invented the Quadracycle in 1896 in his coal shed. Doors in the shed weren�t large enough to allow Ford to remove his new invention and give it a test drive. So he pounded an opening in the brick wall large enough to escape the confines of the dusty shed and motored down the lane. Little did he know that he was inadvertently inventing the garage! Since then, the garage has played the role of incubator for other American entrepreneurs for more than 100 years. Hewlett-Packard Company
William R. Hewlett and David Packard spawned the high-tech industry on the West Coast in 1938 in Hewlett�s 12� X 18� garage adjacent to his rented home in Palo Alto, California. With $538 in capital, their work in the garage marked the beginning of what is now the Hewlett Packard Co. Their first product was the audio oscillator. Their first order came from The Walt Disney Company. Dr. Frederick Terman, a Stanford University professor, encouraged his students to start their own electronics companies instead of heading to East Coast companies. Hewlett and Packard took the advice seriously.
The home and garage on Addison Avenue is a registered historical landmark in California. And this modest structure is considered to be the �Birthplace of Silicon Valley.� The Walt Disney Company
Moving from the Midwest to Hollywood in 1923, Walt Disney moved into his Uncle Robert�s home. Disney struggled to make ends meet. His desire to become a producer faded as his money dwindled. At his uncle�s urging, Disney set up a camera stand in the garage to create animation. Fortunately, Disney took his uncle�s advice! In October of that year, he received news that a New York distributor was interested in several of Disney�s cartoon series. October 16, 1923, marked the beginning of The Walt Disney Company when a contract was signed with the distributor. He soon outgrew the garage in Los Angeles, and he moved a few blocks away where he rented the back half of a real estate office to establish his studio. Disney was fond of saying, �I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing�that it was all started by a mouse,� as he reflected later on his company�s humble beginnings. Well, it may have been started by a mouse, but it began in the garage! Apple Computer
At age 12, Steve Jobs called Bill Hewlett to discuss a project Jobs was working on. It wasn�t the personal computer, but after a 20-minute conversation, Jobs had the parts for his project and a promise of a summer job at Hewlett-Packard. Jobs later became acquainted with Stephen Wozniak. Their paths crossed from time to time during their younger years. Later, Wozniak became an engineer at Hewlett-Packard. Jobs was employed at Atari. In his spare time, Wozniak was building a personal computer, and he and Jobs started collaborating. Their respective companies did not believe the computer industry would ever serve individuals; so their employers declined to consider the project proposed by the two whiz kids. In 1976, the two visionaries started Apple Computer in the Jobs� family garage in Los Altos, California. An old, wooden bench served as the assembly station for computers to be built. The garage soon became Apple�s manufacturing plant and shipping department. Karsten Manufacturing
The widely heralded Ping� 1A putter was invented by Karsten Solheim in his Redwood City, California garage in the late �50s and patented in 1959. The putter�s moniker came from the sound made when the putter hit the ball. Solheim was a mechanical engineer for General Electric. His avocation was inventing and manufacturing golf clubs during his free time. He used sand casting for molding the clubs� heads. He determined that hiring a company to perform the tooling on the club heads would be too expensive. So he found a used milling machine for sale for $1,100 which he purchased with borrowed money. That was the only money he borrowed to launch the company. Of course, the milling machine was set up in the family garage. He had no tooling experience, but that served as no deterrent. After work, he spent countless hours working on each putter and crafting them to perfection. In late summer of 1959, Sports Illustrated treated the 1A putter as a novelty and labeled it the �musical putter.� As a result of the publicity, an East Coast company ordered 100 putters which it used for Christmas gifts. That sent manufacturing into full swing. Solheim�s dinner hour was often delayed as the club head was heat-treated on the burners of the stovetop. Solheim�s professional duties with GE required him to commute often to the Phoenix area. This reduced his time for manufacturing. So in 1961, he persuaded GE to transfer him to Arizona. His family bought a house on several acres with a large garage which enabled him to continue manufacturing the golf clubs. Several professional players in 1965 at the World Cup, an international golf tournament in Japan used the Ping� putter. The event was televised, and following that telecast, orders grew dramatically. He continued to manufacture the putter in the garage until Karsten Manufacturing moved to a north Phoenix location in 1967. The headquarters are still located there. Imprinted on all putters is the name of the city where they are manufactured. An early vintage Redwood City Ping� 1A putter sells easily today for around $2,000. One putter sold at auction for a whopping $20,000! The original retail price for the 1A model was just $17.50. Motown- Hitsville USA
The two-family flat on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit was the home of Berry Gordy, Jr. and his family. The songwriter bought the home in 1959. The family lived upstairs and Berry�s Motown Recording Corporation operated downstairs. The dining room table served as the �shipping department� during the early days. Mr. Gordy�s dream was to record music and manage singers. �Hitsville USA� was born. The nondescript garage was converted into Studio A and included a control room and recording studio. Long before the invention of synthesizers and digital recording, the Motown �echo chamber� produced stunning reverberation effects for recording. The chamber, however, was nothing more than a hole cut in the ceiling. Studio A was open 24 hours a day from 1959 to 1972. The artists continued to record there even after the Motown Recording Corporation moved into its new headquarters in a 10-story office building in downtown Detroit in 1968. Imagine Diana Ross and the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations, Four Tops, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and so many more famous groups got their starts in a garage! This famous garage is now open to the public. You can visit the Motown Historical Museum, and see it just as it was when it started in 1959. Buddy Holly
Even Rock �n Roll can trace its early roots to the family garage where Buddy Holly and his band practiced in Lubbock, Texas, in the mid to late �50s. While the Holley family lived in several rented homes in Lubbock, the home pictured here was their place of residence in 1957. That was the year when Holly�s hit song, �That�ll Be the Day� became the best selling record in the country. Garage bands flourished in the �60s with resurgence in their popularity in the �80s. While few of these bands achieved fame, seldom were they a �hit� with the neighbors. Many neighborhoods today have restrictive and protective covenants that are enforceable. Garage bands are not specifically prohibited, but their noise might be.
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