Champion Spark Plug (Hamtramck, Michigan)

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Benjamin Jeffrey and his brother Joseph, filed for a spark plug patent for porcelain spark plugs in 1906. Shortly after the filing they started the Reliance Automobile Company in San Francisco. In 1908, they formed another spark plug company on the east coast in Newark, New Jersey with Benjamin’s brother-in-law Mortimer Dewitt named the company Jeffrey-Dewitt. In 1910, Jeffrey-Dewitt Company moved to Detroit.

It was in Detroit that the sales of the spark plugs really took off. With the increased sales, the company could not keep up with the demand. In 1915 Champion Spark Plug Company bought the Jeffrey-Dewitt Company and Benjamin Jeffrey continued as a vice president of the company.

The Hamtramck plant manufactured ceramic insulators for Champion Spark Plug until 1967 when a new $12.5 million ceramics plant and research center was built at 2000 Conner Avenue. The Conner Avenue plant closed in 1990.