Pierce Davies Schenck (d. 15 October 1930, Dayton, Ohio) was an entrepreneur in the metalworking business in Dayton, Ohio. He used the garage behind his house on South Brown Street to work on automobiles and in April 1907 incorporated the

Speedwell Motor Car Company The Speedwell Motor Car Company was a Brass Era American automobile manufacturing company established by Pierce Davies Schenck that produced cars from 1907 to 1914. The Great Dayton Flood of 1913 greatly damaged the Speedwell factory and inven ...

. Speedwell purchased and occupied a former Dayton Machine Tool Company factory on Essex Avenue in Dayton's Edgemont neighborhood, a site that later hosted a Delco factory. The factory provided temporary space to the Wright Company in 1910 before the completion of its new airplane factory in west Dayton. The Great Dayton Flood of 1913 inundated the Speedwell factory, destroying machinery and automobiles, and the company proved unable to recover and entered receivership in 1915. Schenck later became president of the Dayton Malleable Iron Company and turned his focus to adapting high silicon iron alloys to practical uses. This led to his establishing the Duriron Company, a name which he coined, in 1917. It prospered through high demand for its products generated by the First World War and employed 1,500 people, becoming one of Dayton's leading industries. His home at 414 Oakwood Avenue in Oakwood was designed by Dayton architect

Albert Pretzinger The Pretzinger name belongs to a family of architects and engineers in Dayton, Ohio. Albert Pretzinger (born February 28, 1863) started the family's architectural legacy. In 1892 he was with Peters, Burns & Pretzinger. He established his own f ...

in 1927.

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