Lexington Motor - Auburn Automobile Company, Indiana
The Lexington Motor Company, first housed in a barn in Lexington, Kentucky, was established in 1909 by Kinsey Stone, a local promoter and horse racer. In 1910, following a discussion with a group of Connersville businessmen, he moved his company to more suitable quarters at 18th and Columbia Streets in the Connersville Industrial Park. With the help of his chief engineer, John C. Moore, Stone developed the Lexington automobile.
The company was plagued by financial problems and in 1913 E.W. Ansted acquired the Lexington Motor Company. The Lexington auto formed the backbone of Ansted's automobile empire. The car went through several model changes between 1910 and 1927, and many of its major components--frame, top woodwork, body and engine-- were manufactured in Ansted-owned subsidiary plants.
In 19114, the name of the firm was changed to the Lexington-Howard Company. The Howard Distributing Company contracted for a large six-cylinder touring car, the Howard. When the Howard auto was discontinued in production after eight months, the name of the firm was changed back to the Lexington Automobile Company.
The U.S. Automobile Corporation, formed during the fall of 1919 as a $10 million preferred stock corporation, was a holding company for various Ansted-owned enterprises: the Ansted Engine Company, the Connersville Foundry Corporation, and the Lexington Automobile Corporation.
The property of the Lexington Automobile Company, along with the Ansted Engineering Company, went into receivership in April 1923. The receivers were unable to show profits, and the factory was sold to Bigger and Better Connersvi1le, a civic group, in November 1926. After a series of legal entanglements were resolved, the plant was sold to the Auburn Automobile Company in 1927, the same year that Aburn bought the Ansted Engine Company
