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Carl G. Fisher in 1909

Carl Graham Fisher (January 12, 1874 – July 15, 1939) was an American entrepreneur in the automotive industry, highway construction and real estate development.

In his early life in Indiana, with family financial strains and a disability, Fisher became a bicycle enthusiast and opened a modest bicycle shop with his brothers. He became involved in bicycle racing, and many activities related to the emerging American auto industry. In 1904, he and friend James A. Allison bought an interest in the U.S. patent to manufacture acetylene headlights, a precursor to electric models that became common about ten years later. Soon, his firm supplied nearly every headlamp used on automobiles in the United States as manufacturing plants were built all over the country to supply the demand. The headlight patent made him rich as an automotive parts supplier when Allison and he sold their company, Prest-O-Lite, to Union Carbide in 1913 for $9 million (equivalent to $268 million in 2022). (Full article...)