George N. Pierce owned a manufacturing company in Buffalo several years prior to building motor cars, making among other things, bicycles. In 1903, he renamed his company the Pierce Motor Car Company, and again in 1908, the Pierce Arrow Motor Car Company.

The Pierce Arrow was from the start, an upscale, luxury, status symbol automobile. It continued in production into 1938, when the company went out of business.

This complex survives, on Elmwood Avenue, at Great Arrow.