We all know that Ransom Olds left Oldsmobile while his curved-dash model was at the height of its popularity, thence to found Reo. But Reo, too, held his interest for but a few years. Though he remained on Reo’s board until the 1930s, after 1912 he had little involvement with cars. Where did he go then? Well, Oldsmar, of course.
I’d heard of Oldsmar, Ransom’s Florida real estate development, before, but this past April, while in Florida for another reason, I realized I was quite close by. With two fellow historians I set out to explore.
The first thing we saw on arrival in Oldsmar was the former building of Oldsmar Bank, now the Public Library. Built in 1919, it’s the oldest public building in town. The library was closed, it being a Sunday morning, so Stanton (left), Arthur (right) and I set out in a version of “Where’s Ransom?” Stanton and Arthur are both architects, and quickly realized that Oldsmar houses dated from as early as 1918-19 to more recent times. Was there, we wondered, an Olds mansion somewhere in town?
On our way to the waterfront we came upon an impressive stucco residence with porte cochere. Could that be Ransom’s house, we wondered? It was the only one that looked worthy of a twice-over auto magnate. On our way back, we saw a woman washing a pickup truck, so Stanton asked about Mr. Olds. She led us inside, to consult the owner of the house, who told us that Olds came to Florida in 1913, purchasing 35,000 acres on Tampa Bay. He envisioned a model community where residents could grow vegetables, a town of “Health, Wealth and Happiness.” He built a power plant, a 60-room hotel, and bought a tractor company he moved to town and renamed Oldsmar Tractor Company. Alas, the predicted boom did not come, and Ransom soon left. Population dropped to 200 people and growth did not return to Oldsmar until the 1980s. The center of town holds only modest commercial buildings of the 1950s and ’60s. Today’s business district is on the main road outside of town. As everywhere in Florida, though, development is fast approaching.
Where had Ransom Olds lived? Not in the grand house in which we stood, we learned. It had been designed and built for him, but he never occupied it. When it was finished in 1924, he had left town. While in Oldsmar, it seemed, he lived in a more modest frame house across the street.
Are there Oldsmobiles in Oldsmar? The only ones we saw were on street signs and the banners on State Street. The only interesting cars we encountered were a first-generation Mustang, a Nissan convertible up on blocks, and an aged Willys Jeep in the garage of our guide to historic Oldsmar.
You can read more about Oldsmar history here, and the Florida Memory Project also has lots of historic photos of Oldsmar.
