Diane Kurek Kaiser

This is book is number three of our Marathon Trilogy, The Marathon Men: Jackson to Nashville. In it, we cover the lives of nine of the men behind Southern Engine & Boiler Works, Southern Motor Works and Marathon Motor Works from the companies' birth in Jackson, Tennessee, to their deaths in Nashville or Jackson. Our writing also includes a tenth person: Jackson and Nashville developer Barry Walker, whose foresight, research and obsession have created Marathon Village and kept the history of Marathon still available. The first book of our Trilogy, The Rise and Fall of Marathon Motor Works, answers the questions about the origin of Southern Motor Works and Marathon Motor Works, its move from Jackson, Tennessee, to Nashville, and the explosive growth and influence of the automobile company, along with its unexpected problems and abrupt closure. The second book of our Trilogy, Jackson: the Beginning of the Marathon - the Story of Southern Engine & Boiler Works, covers its beginning in Jackson, Tennessee, before Sherman Manufacturing and the later Southern Engine & Boiler Works. Here we answer who, what, why, when, where and how questions about Southern Engine & Boiler Works; and recognize Southern Engine & Boiler Works' effect on the City of Jackson, Tennessee, from 1874 to the present. Also included are the eventual decline, sale and closing of Harvey Steel Products Corporation, the new Southern Engine & Boiler Works of 1922, and Southern Car & Foundry Company of 1925; as well as the offspring companies of Southern Supply Company and Southern Rents.

Did I just read that Nashville, best known as Music City with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Grand Ole Opry, and barbecue, once had its own, and the South's first, automobile builder? ... You say it really did. Well, if so, what was it called, and where and when was it? ... Marathon from 1910 through 1914; never heard of it. Wait a minute. Is that connected with the boutique shopping and restaurants in that renovated area of Marathon Village over on Clinton? ... It must have been just a headquarters here in Nashville; seems far-fetched that there was an auto plant here in Nashville, so must have been somewhere else. ... The auto plant was here in Nashville, you say; must have been a really small backyard operation. ... 15th largest in America in its time with many hundreds of workers building thousands of cars sold across America and even worldwide. That is almost unbelievable ... I still think you're pulling my leg, but if all this is true, what happened to it? The Rise and Fall of Marathon Motor Works, the first book of this Marathon Trilogy, answers the questions about the origin of the company, its move from Jackson, Tennessee, to Nashville, and the explosive growth and influence of the automobile company, along with its unexpected problems and abrupt closure. What we have written has been verified through multiple sources; however, our accuracy is directly dependent on the truthfulness of the sources that provided information over the past 100 years.