Universal Lofts (Detroit, Michigan)

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Three story former Norton Abrasives industrial building converted into residential units.

Norton was founded in 1885 in Worcester Massachusetts as on offshoot of a pottery concern, to make abrasive grinding wheels. Until the advent of the automobile, business lagged. Prior to the automobile, it was very rare for a job to require tolerances tighter than .001 inch. A skilled machinist could, with great effort and concentration, achieve that on a lathe. However, automobile engines and other parts, such as crankshafts, required tolerances of .00025 inch, and the metals used were hard steel alloys of carbon, tungsten, nickel, chromium, and vanadium. These could only be tooled efficiently, accurately, and economically by grinding.

This was where Charles Norton's production grinders made all the difference. In 1914 Henry Ford purchased 35 grinders for $30,000. In 1920 Ford is said to have commented that "the abrasive processes are basically responsible for our ability to produce cars to sell for less than a thousand dollars. Were it not for these processes these same cars would cost at least five thousand dollars, if indeed they could be made at all."

In 1927 Norton estimated that 95 percent of an automobile's moving parts required grinding. At that time, the industry bought about 55 percent of Norton Grinding Company's output and had more than 68,000 grinding machines. In fact, the automotive industry had became Norton's biggest customer.