Thomas White was an old-line Cleveland manufacturer, primarily of sewing machines, but his company also produced roller skates, phonographs, kerosene lamps, and machine tools.

This allowed him the luxury of an automobile, and he bought a Locomobile steamer before the turn of the 20th Century and was unhappy with both its quality and reliability.

His son, Rollin, was a Cornell engineer and was interested in the new-fangled automobile.

He perfected a water tube steam generator that fixed the most basic problems with the Locomobile and patented it.

Rollin and his brother Windsor began making White steamers in a corner of the sewing machine factory.

They were so successful that they spun off from the original company and had their own plant by 1906.

Three years later the company was so well established that William Howard Taft selected a White as the first official automobile of the U.S.

President, a publicity coup.

However, steam was running its course in the U.S.

auto industry a...