Holbrook Company of Hudson, New York manufactured custom automobile bodies and their leading customer was Packard Motor Company.
Hudson is a city located along the west border of Columbia County, New York, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 6,713, the second-largest in the county, following the nearby town of Kinderhook. Located on the east side of the Hudson River and 120 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, it was named for the river and its namesake explorer Henry Hudson.
Harry F Holbrook and John D Graham set up this business to make custom automobile bodies on the west side of New York City in 1908. Holbrook left the business in 1913 and Jack Graham became sole owner and began attracting more orders from Packard's New York branch. The growing order book demanded more shop space and though extra premises were found a mile away it became necessary to move bodies from one shop to the other to get them finished. [1]
The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States and in the U.S. state of New York. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
After World War I the right new location was found in 1921 about 100 miles north of New York in Hudson, New York and the factory was moved there. The Packard bodies were generally town cars and limousines but they built a line of 100 coupés for Packard. They also built some notable phaetons for display at Automobile Salons. [1]
World War I, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide.
The New York businessmen who had provided the financial support for Holbrook were unable to continue the loans after the Wall Street crash of 1929. Holbrook entered bankruptcy in May 1930. Some Holbrook assets were bought by Rollston. [1]
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