What's amazing about automotive history is that in the first half of the 20th Century, when gazillions of backyard tinkerers thought they could be the next Henry Ford, there were automotive factories scattered all over the country, in just about every town that had an enterprising blacksmith. Thus, automotive history can be a local pursuit, not one confined to Detroit and its surrounding suburbs.

Taking that to heart, we went in search of the one automotive factory in Bennington, Vermont, the world headquarters of both Hemmings Motor News and Karl H. Martin's Wasp, a car built here from 1919 to 1924. In SIA #74, Keith Marvin wrote a great account of driving a Wasp – the same one that currently resides in the Bennington Museum – but nothing about the factory. So here's the rest of the story.

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