Christopher Columbus Smith was responsible for Holland boating giant Chris-Craft.
Smith was born in St. Clair County, Michigan, in 1861. In 1868, his family moved to Algonac. There, Chris and his older brother Hank started a duck hunting business. In 1874, the brothers built a rowboat to complement their business.
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In 1884, Chris married Anna Rattray and opened a commercial boat house. In 1899, he became the village postmaster and, in 1900, he became president of the Algonac Chamber of Commerce.
And yet, speed boats became Smith’s passion.
In 1910, Smith met J. “Baldy” Ryan, a gambling financier from St. Louis, Missouri. Together, they formed the Smith-Ryan Boat Company — but they had to dissolve the company in 1913 when Ryan went bankrupt.
Smith formed the CC Smith Boat and Engine Company. In 1915, he sold an idea for a racing boat, Miss Detroit, to a group of businessmen. That led to championships, which led to orders. Needing capital, Smith sold a controlling interest in his company to another racing enthusiast: Gar Wood.
Smith and Wood had a falling out over boat designs. So, in 1922, Smith established the Chris Smith and Sons Boat Company. In 1922, they made four boats. In 1925, they made 111 boats. In 1926, they implemented mass production techniques learned from Detroit’s automakers and, like them, started selling their mahogany boats through franchise dealers.
August Landwehr, co-founder of the Holland Furnace Company, was one of their customers.
In 1929, the Smiths built 946 boats and added a cruiser to their line, outfitting it with a boarding ladder, berths, galley, wash basin, table, mattresses and bedding, table linen, glassware and silverware.
During the Great Depression, the Smiths reorganized their company as Chris-Craft and took on an outside investor. Sales rebounded in 1936. In 1937, before a month-long strike at their Algonac plant in 1938, the Smiths began looking at expansion sites.
In 1939, Chris-Craft introduced 115 models and purchased 22 acres of land in Holland to construct a 600-foot by 110-foot building. There, Chris-Craft produced its first luxury model: a 49-foot Runabout.
Christopher Columbus Smith died in 1939. His grandson, George Smith, became Chris-Craft’s first boat design engineer in Holland.
In 1941, Chris-Craft opened a plant in Cadillac, Michigan. In 1942, the U.S. War Department gave Chris-Craft a contract for Eureka-style Landing Boats; of the 725 ordered, the Holland plant built 295.
After the war, the Holland plant began producing “the average man’s ideal small cruiser.” In 1946, Leon Slikkers joined the company in the joinery department to help build those small cruisers. By 1951, Chris-Craft was producing 139 models of boats, including do-it-yourself kits.