Jefferson Motors

Jefferson Motors was a locomobile manufacturing company established in Jefferson in the early twentieth century with funding provided by Kramer Associates. Due to cheap and plentiful supplies of vulcazine in Jefferson, J.M. was able to pioneer a new type of engine in 1905 that ignited a mixture of vulcazine and air. Due to aggressive marketing by J.M. president William James, the company's vulcazine-fueled locomobiles did well on the world market. James predicted that his locomobiles would soon overtake the steam-powered "iron horses" of the Confederation of North America. Sobel notes that James' prediction came true in 1929, when sales of vulcazine-powered locomobiles surpassed that of steam-powered locomobiles.

Competition from J.M. forced Owen Galloway of the North American company Galloway Locomobile to pursue an aggressive strategy of acquiring competing companies and marketing his own vulcazine-powered locomobile model in 1922. It is likely that during the Jackson restructuring of Kramer Associates in the early 1930s, Jefferson Motors was transferred to the control of the World Locomobile daughter company.