If your safe says “Detroit Safe Co.” on the door, it could come from either of two firms with the same name. The original company made fire and burglar-proof safes, bank vaults and even jail cells on Fort Street East from 1865 until the early 1900s; the later one sold Diebold safes. Here’s the story from directories, trade papers and bank records, and how to date a Detroit safe today.
1865
company founded in Detroit, July
3,000
safes a year, plus vaults and jail work, 1889
550 lb
its smallest advertised fire-proof safe, 1888
1919
the Detroit Safe Co. name sold to Diebold
Key takeaways
- The company was founded in July 1865 by David O. Paige, a safe man trained at Hall, Carroll & Co. of Cincinnati, with the tobacco manufacturer John J. Bagley (later Governor of Michigan) and the prison reformer Zebulon R. Brockway.
- From 1874 it worked from a large brick factory on Fort Street East, between Beaubien and St. Antoine streets, and by 1889 employed about 400 men.
- Its speciality was the “steel jamb” safe with rolled steel door frames and rounded corners, and it built bank vaults from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, plus the vault doors of the Michigan State Capitol.
- The original manufacturer wound up in the early 1900s. A new Detroit Safe Co., formed in 1904, sold Diebold safes and was bought by Diebold in 1919.
- No serial number list survives. Name, address and construction are the dating clues.
In This Article
Detroit Safe Company at a glance
| Country | United States (Detroit, Michigan) |
| Founded | July 1865, with a capital of $20,000 |
| Founders | David Osgood Paige (manager), John J. Bagley, Zebulon R. Brockway |
| Works | Atwater Street (1860s); Fort Street East, between Beaubien and St. Antoine streets (from 1874, enlarged 1880 and 1882) |
| Products | Fire and burglar-proof safes, bank safes and vaults, vault doors, iron shutters, jail cells; also glass-enamelled steel beer casks (1889) |
| Size | 100 hands (1868); 250 (1881); about 400 men and 3,000 safes a year (1889) |
| End of manufacturing | Early 1900s; the “old Detroit Safe Works” was taken over by a car maker in February 1904 |
| Successor name | Detroit Safe Co. formed 1904 as Diebold agents; bought by the Diebold Safe & Lock Co. on 24 May 1919 |
History of the Detroit Safe Company
A Cincinnati safe man comes to Detroit, 1865
Of the three founders, only one actually knew the safe trade: David Osgood Paige. He had become interested in bank locks and safes while testing inventions in Cincinnati and joined Hall, Carroll & Co., the safe and lock makers, staying until 1865. In July 1865 he moved to Detroit and, with John J. Bagley and Z. R. Brockway, “established the manufacture of safes, vault and jail work”. They organised the Detroit Safe Company with $20,000 of capital and Paige as manager; by 1889 he was general manager and treasurer.1
His partners were well known, though not for safes. Bagley had made a fortune in chewing tobacco and was an original stockholder of the safe company; he was Governor of Michigan from 1873 to 1877 and died in 1881.2 Brockway, the superintendent of the Detroit House of Correction, later wrote that he had been “a special partner in the Detroit Safe Company” for five years, “the period of its development”, without profit or loss.3 The state gazetteer for 1867–8 lists the firm on Atwater Street with $40,000 capital, Bagley as president and Brockway as secretary and treasurer.4
Jail work made sense for a firm with a prison superintendent as a partner, and it was part of the trade from the start. In October 1868 a Pittsburgh paper reported that the company made $150,000 worth of iron safes a year with 100 hands, was doubling its capacity and had a $30,000 order for the vaults and safes of a new bank in Cleveland.5
Timeline
- 1865 D. O. Paige, J. J. Bagley and Z. R. Brockway found the company in July.
- 1867–1868 Works on Atwater Street; 100 hands; capacity being doubled.
- 1874 First part of the Fort Street East works built (extended 1880 and 1882).
- 1876 Detroit vault doors and safe at the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota, when the James-Younger gang strikes.
- 1879 Vault doors and State Treasurer’s safe for the new Michigan State Capitol.
- 1889 About 400 men, 3,000 safes a year, branch houses in six cities.
- 1893 Exhibits safes, vaults, vault doors and locks at the Chicago World’s Fair.
- 1904 The “old Detroit Safe Works” taken over by a car maker; a new Detroit Safe Co. starts as Diebold agents.
- 1919 The Diebold Safe & Lock Co. buys the Detroit Safe Co. on 24 May.
The Fort Street works
The factory pictured at the top of this page stood on Fort Street East between Beaubien and St. Antoine streets. Silas Farmer’s history of Detroit dates its buildings to 1874, 1880 and 1882, and the engraving shows the lettering along the front, which sums up the whole business in one line: “Vaults, Vault Doors, Jails, Fire & Burglar Proof Safes”.6 In 1880 the company was building a further addition on East Fort Street.7
A trade correspondent who visited in August 1881 found 250 hands at work, with safes, iron doors and shutters “shipped all over the country” and a large sale in Europe and South America.8 By 1889 a guide printed for the delegates of the International American Congress, who toured the works, gave about 400 men, 3,000 safes a year, branch houses in Boston, St. Louis, Louisville, St. Paul, Atlanta and San Francisco, and customers in South America, Mexico, England, China and Japan.9
A Detroit business history of 1891 described a three-storey brick factory 350 by 138 feet, 200 skilled mechanics and 25 travelling salesmen, paid-up capital of $350,000 and an annual output worth $500,000.10 The two counts of the workforce don’t agree: about 400 men in 1889, 200 skilled mechanics in 1891. The 1889 figure may include outside fitters and vault builders.
The president in 1889 was William B. Wesson, a Detroit land dealer and president of the Wayne County Savings Bank, who died in 1890; by 1891 the president was E. Y. Swift.9,11
“Five years a special partner in the Detroit Safe Company, the period of its development, gave me no profit nor did it involve a loss.”
Zebulon R. Brockway, 1912
The steel jamb safe
Detroit’s selling point was the door frame, which is handy, because it’s also the part you can still check on a surviving safe. In most American safes of the period the frames and jambs around the door were cast iron, thick and brittle. The Detroit “steel jamb” safe used frames and jambs of rolled malleable steel, crimped into six offsets or flanges under the company’s own patents, with the bolt work on the inner flange and rounded corners on the body. The company argued that thin steel carried less heat into the safe than cast iron and wouldn’t crack in a fire, and that the round corners helped the safe survive a fall through a burning floor.10 An 1883 guide called it “the best fire-proof safe in the market”; that is the guide’s opinion, not a test result.12
Modesty wasn’t part of the pitch. In California the firm’s agents advertised it from 1879 as the “Champion Safe of the World”, sold alongside Sargent & Greenleaf and Yale time locks. In 1882 its Pacific Coast general agent kept an office and salesroom under the Palace Hotel in San Francisco and offered lock repairs and combination changes.13
Bank vaults and electric bolt work
Bank work made the company’s name. Abraham S. Wiley, vice-president from 1874 and manager from March 1890, owned the patent for the vault built for the National Bank of Commerce in Pittsburgh: a lining of steel bars and tempered plates, outer doors and frames weighing over ten tons that opened through gearing by a hand wheel. The cleverest part was the door, which had no spindle hole through it at all: its bolts were thrown by an electric current through solenoid magnets, also his invention.10 The Pittsburgh contract, announced in August 1889, was worth $25,000.14
Other vaults followed. In 1892 Detroit’s Peninsular Savings Bank moved into a vault walled with interlocked railway rails and lined with drill-proof plate, its safes described as the strongest the company had built.15 The Monroe County Savings Bank in Rochester, New York, claimed in 1894 to have “the strongest vault in the United States”, built by the Detroit Safe Company with electric bolt work and two doors of three and a half tons each.16 The Bank of North America in Philadelphia had Detroit-built vaults with time locks that could be set for one to 72 hours.17 Time locks and the burglars they were meant to stop are covered in our history of safe-cracking.
What happened to the Detroit Safe Company?
The firm was still listed among Detroit’s safe manufacturers at “Fort st e.” in 1899 and in a national suppliers’ directory in 1900, but we couldn’t find any account of its closure.18 The best clue is a trade report of February 1904: the “spacious plant of the old Detroit Safe Works, at 87 and 89 Fort street, east” had been taken by the new Reliance Automobile Co., whose directors included none other than D. O. Paige.19 Writing in 1926, the Detroit journalist William Stocking listed the Detroit Safe Co. among the industries of the 1870s that had since “wound up” their business.20
The name didn’t disappear, though, and that’s what makes a Detroit safe tricky to date. John E. Blackmore, a former railway postal clerk who had entered the safe business at Bay City in 1898, moved to Detroit in 1904 and “founded the Detroit Safe Co.”, of which he was secretary and treasurer.21 This new firm advertised as “Detroit Safe Co.: Diebold Safe & Lock Co.” from West Jefferson Avenue, and a 1917 guide lists it as agents for Diebold.22,23 In 1916 Charles E. Walker, a former Diebold salesman, bought an interest and became vice-president and manager; on 24 May 1919 the business was sold to the Diebold Safe & Lock Company, which kept the Detroit Safe Company name for its sales branch handling the full Diebold line.24,25
Notable Detroit safes and vaults
Northfield, Minnesota, 1876
On 7 September 1876 the James-Younger gang tried to rob the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota, and failed. According to Mark Lee Gardner’s history of the raid, the Rice County Journal identified the Detroit Safe Company as the maker of both the bank’s vault doors and the steel safe inside, which had a new chronometer time lock. The original Detroit vault doors are still in place in the restored bank, now run by the Northfield Historical Society.26
The Michigan State Capitol, 1879
When the new Capitol in Lansing was dedicated in 1879, the list of contractors credited the “Vault doors, and State Treasurer’s safe” to the Detroit Safe Co.27 At the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 the company showed safes, vaults, vault doors and locks as exhibit 1028.28
The Fargo fire, 1893
After fire swept Fargo, North Dakota, in June 1893, the company placed a page of letters from Fargo business men in the Duluth Evening Herald under the headline “The Detroit Safe Company’s Safes Came Through It Triumphant, Not One of Them Failing”.29 These are testimonials chosen by the seller, so read them as advertising rather than a test, but they show where Detroit safes were sold: across the upper Midwest and the plains.
How to identify and date a Detroit safe
There’s no shortcut here. No Detroit Safe Company serial register or factory records are known to survive, so a number on the door won’t date the safe by itself. Use the clues below instead, and our general guide on how to date an old safe.
Clue 1
The name
“Detroit Safe Co.” painted or stencilled on the door, often in gold, is typical. “Champion Safe” belongs to the advertising of about 1879–1882. A safe of the 1900s or later that carries a Detroit Safe Co. label next to a Diebold name was sold, not made, by the later agency.13,22
Clue 2
The door frame
Look at the jamb when the door is open. A stepped frame of rolled steel with several flanges, and a body with rounded corners, fits the Detroit “steel jamb” safe of the 1880s and 1890s. A thick cast-iron frame points to another maker or an earlier date.10
Clue 4: addresses
The safe itself usually says only “Detroit, Mich.”, so if any old paperwork came with it, you’re in luck: catalogues, invoices and adverts carry street addresses. These are the years each is recorded:4,12,31,19,23
| Atwater Street, between Hastings and Rivard | 1867–8 gazetteer |
| 67 to 81 Fort Street East | 1883 |
| 67 to 99 East Fort Street | 1888 advert |
| 87 and 89 Fort Street East (“old Detroit Safe Works”) | Empty works, February 1904 |
| 25–27 West Jefferson Avenue (Diebold agency) | 1908 |
| 160 Jefferson (Diebold agents) | 1917 |
How much does a Detroit safe weigh?
We haven’t found a Detroit catalogue, but an 1888 mail-order advert lists two of its smaller fire-proof safes, sold for cash with the order:31
| Model (1888) | Outside size (H × W × D) | Weight | Price then |
|---|---|---|---|
| No. 100 | 28 × 21 × 20 in | 550 lb (249 kg) | $35 |
| No. 101 | 32 × 21 × 20 in | 600 lb (272 kg) | $45 |
So even the “small” Detroit safes weigh over a quarter of a ton, and larger office and bank safes weigh far more; the vault doors in Rochester weighed three and a half tons each.16 Measure the outside and use our safe weight calculator before anyone tries to move it.
Moving a Detroit safe
A 2024 survey of US locksmiths put a typical safe move at $250 to $500, depending on size and access.32 Use a specialist safe mover, give them the measurements and photos of the route, and check the floor. Our guide to moving or getting rid of an old safe covers quotes, scrap and selling.
What is a Detroit safe worth?
We haven’t found a published auction result for a Detroit Safe Company safe, so we can’t give a maker-specific range. As an informal guide, not an appraisal, Detroit safes are valued like other American safes of the 1870s–1900s: by size, condition of the original paint and lettering, a working lock with the combination, and how easy the safe is to move. A small painted safe in good order is the most saleable; a heavy bank safe is usually worth more as a working safe than as an antique.
For a sense of scale, when new the 1888 models cost $35 and $45, and a Detroit time-lock bank safe bought in Ann Arbor in 1895 cost $1,500.31,30 Our guide to what old safes are worth has dated prices for comparable safes.
Lost the combination or the key?
There’s nobody to ask for the combination. No one holds Detroit Safe Company records: the original firm closed more than a century ago and Diebold bought only the later sales business. Your best call is a qualified safe technician; in the US, the Safe & Vault Technicians Association lists them.33 Expect to show proof of ownership. Drilling blind can hit hard plates behind the lock and spoils an original painted door. Our guides to old safe combination locks and to being locked out of an old safe explain what a technician does and what it costs.
Myths and mix-ups
Diebold bought the old Detroit safe factory in 1919.
The original works had closed by early 1904. What Diebold bought in 1919 was the Detroit Safe Co. formed in 1904 to sell Diebold safes.
Every safe marked “Detroit Safe Co.” was made in Detroit.
Only those made before the early 1900s. Later safes with the name were usually Diebold safes sold through the Detroit agency.
The serial number will tell you the year.
No Detroit Safe Company serial list has been published. Note the number anyway; dated examples from owners are how such lists get built.
Not sure what you have? Send us photos of the door lettering, the dial and the open door frame, with the outside measurements, and we’ll help you date it.
Frequently asked questions
Who made Detroit safes?
The Detroit Safe Company, founded in July 1865 by David O. Paige, John J. Bagley and Zebulon R. Brockway. Its works were on Fort Street East in Detroit, Michigan.
How old is my Detroit Safe Company safe?
A safe made by the original company dates from 1865 to the early 1900s, most likely from the Fort Street years, 1874 onwards. A rolled-steel stepped door frame suggests the 1880s or 1890s. If it also carries a Diebold name, it was sold by the later agency rather than made by the original company.
Can I look up a Detroit safe serial number?
Not at present, sadly. No factory register survives in any archive we know of, and there is no record that the original company’s books passed to Diebold.
How much does an antique Detroit safe weigh?
Its small fire-proof safes of 1888 weighed 550 lb (249 kg) and 600 lb (272 kg). Larger office and bank safes weigh far more: the vault doors in Rochester weighed three and a half tons each.
Is the Detroit Safe Company still in business?
No. The original maker wound up in the early 1900s, and the later Detroit Safe Co. became part of Diebold in 1919.
Sources:
- Biography of David Osgood Paige, in Silas Farmer, The History of Detroit and Michigan, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (1889), p. 1196, Internet Archive. ↩︎
- Obituary of ex-Governor John J. Bagley, The New York Times, 29 July 1881. ↩︎
- Zebulon Reed Brockway, Fifty Years of Prison Service: An Autobiography (New York, 1912), p. 153, Internet Archive. ↩︎
- “Detroit Safe Company: Atwater street. Capital, $40,000. John J. Bagley, President. Z. R. Brockway, Sec’y and Treasurer”, in Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1867–8, Detroit section, Internet Archive. ↩︎
- Industrial notes, The Pittsburgh Gazette, 7 October 1868. ↩︎
- “Detroit Safe Company’s Works, Fort Street East, between Beaubien and St. Antoine Streets. Built in 1874-80-82”, engraving in Silas Farmer, The History of Detroit and Michigan (1884), p. 861; scan on Wikimedia Commons (British Library, public domain). ↩︎
- Building intelligence, Detroit: “Detroit Safe Company, addition to factory, East Fort St.”, The American Architect and Building News, 19 June 1880. ↩︎
- “Correspondence” from Detroit, 22 August 1881, The Trade Review, 27 August 1881. ↩︎
- Detroit: A Sketch Prepared for the Use of Delegates to the International American Congress (1889), pp. 9 and 38, Internet Archive. ↩︎
- “Safe Works. Detroit Safe Company” and biography of Abraham S. Wiley, in Detroit in History and Commerce (Detroit: Rogers & Thorpe, 1891), pp. 144–145, Internet Archive. ↩︎
- Biography of William B. Wesson, in Guide and Souvenir of Detroit (1891), Internet Archive. ↩︎
- Detroit and the Pleasure Resorts of Northern Michigan (1883), section on Detroit manufacturers, Internet Archive. ↩︎
- Advertisements “Champion Safe of the World. Manufactured by Detroit Safe Company”, Winters Advocate (California), 17 May 1879, and “The Detroit Safe! The Champion of the World!”, The Pacific (San Francisco), 12 July 1882. ↩︎
- Real estate and building notes, The Pittsburg Dispatch, 3 August 1889. ↩︎
- “Detroit, Mich.: The Peninsular Savings Bank has moved into its new quarters”, The Bankers’ Magazine, September 1892, pp. 229–230. ↩︎
- “Monroe County Savings Bank, Nos. 33 and 35 State Street”, in History and Commerce of Rochester (1894), p. 85, Internet Archive. ↩︎
- The Bank of North America, Philadelphia, a National Bank, Founded 1781 (1906), pp. 21–22, Internet Archive. ↩︎
- “Safes: Mnfrs. … Detroit Safe Co, Fort st e.”, in 1899 Business and Professional Directory of Detroit and Surrounding Towns, Internet Archive; also listed among safe makers in The Railway Purchasing Agent’s Directory (1900). ↩︎
- Detroit trade news on the Reliance Automobile Co., Motor Age, 11 February 1904. ↩︎
- William Stocking, “Fifty Years of Industrial Progress in Detroit”, Michigan History Magazine, vol. 10, no. 4 (October 1926), pp. 611–612. ↩︎
- Entry “Blackmore, John E., safes”, in Albert Nelson Marquis (ed.), The Book of Detroiters, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 1914), Internet Archive. ↩︎
- Advertisement, “Detroit Safe Co.: Diebold Safe & Lock Co., 25–27 West Jefferson Avenue, Detroit”, Michigan Manufacturer and Financial Record (1908). ↩︎
- “Safes & Vaults: Detroit Safe Co., Agts. Diebolt [sic] Safe & Lock Co., 160 Jefferson”, in Perry’s Guide of Detroit and Suburbs (1917), Internet Archive. ↩︎
- Biography of Charles E. Walker, in Clarence M. Burton (ed.), The City of Detroit, Michigan, 1701–1922, vol. 4 (1922), Internet Archive. ↩︎
- Trade news from Detroit, Office Appliances, January 1920, p. 209. ↩︎
- Mark Lee Gardner, Shot All to Hell: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid, and the Wild West’s Greatest Escape (New York, 2013), chapter on the raid and its notes, citing the Rice County Journal and the Northfield Historical Society. ↩︎
- List of contractors (“Vault doors, and State Treasurer’s safe: Detroit Safe Co., Detroit, Mich.”), in Inaugural Proceedings at the Dedication of the New Capitol of Michigan (Lansing, 1879), Internet Archive. ↩︎
- Exhibit 1028, “Detroit Safe Company, Detroit, Mich. Safes, vaults, vault doors and locks”, in the Official Catalogue of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, Department of Manufactures. ↩︎
- “The Detroit Safe Company’s Safes Came Through It Triumphant”, testimonials from Fargo business men, Duluth Evening Herald, July 1893 (advertising feature). ↩︎
- “The First National’s New Safe”, Ann Arbor Courier, 14 August 1895, Ann Arbor District Library. ↩︎
- Advertisement, “Detroit Safe Co., 67 to 99 East Fort St., Detroit, Mich.”, in The Microscope, vol. 8 (Detroit, 1888), advertising pages. ↩︎
- CLK Supplies, “Locksmith Price Survey Breakdown: What You Should Know for 2024” (21 October 2024), summarising the Locksmith Ledger 2024 National Locksmith Price Survey. ↩︎
- Safe & Vault Technicians Association, savta.org, “Safe Tech Search” (“Find a qualified technician”). ↩︎
