The automobile has played an important part in my life; in fact, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the automobile. If your mind is wondering, no, I don’t mean that. In the summer of 1940 while Nazi tanks were racing across France, my mom to be, Henrietta Dickinson, came to Indianapolis from Akron, Ohio to visit her cousin in Irvington. My dad to be, Russell Barnett, lived across the street from the house where she was staying, and over those quiet warm summer days in America a relationship began to develop. When Henrietta returned to Akron, Russell continued at his job as a coremaker at the International Harvester Indianapolis Works and looked for a way to continue the romance. In September he bought a new powder blue Dodge at the Fadely-Anderson dealership on East Washington Street, and began heading east on the National Road at the end of the work day on Friday for Akron. He’d return home late Sunday night; go to work Monday morning and repeat the 700-plus mile round trip the following weekend. After negotiating this long-distance courtship along mostly two-lane roads, Russell and Henrietta were married in April 1941; and the rest is history. I relate this story to illustrate the impact of the automobile to life in the first half of the 20th century. It’s doubtful if a similar courtship could have been maintained in an earlier time.
When Elwood Haynes took his Pioneer for a spin at a dizzy 7 mph on Pumpkinville Pike outside of Kokomo in July 1894, he had no clue how 46 years later a smitten young man would use a car to win his true love. Two years earlier, inventor and carriage manufacturer Charles H. Black built the first automobile in Indianapolis and cigar dealer Samuel D. Pierson became the city’s first automobile owner, and one of three in the United States, when he bought a gasoline powered 1892 Benz and had it imported from Germany. The potential of the automobile was quickly recognized, and within a few years of these developments Charles Coffin and his runabout joined the Benz in cruising Indianapolis streets. The city’s first automobile manufacturing company was the Indiana Bicycle Co, 139 S. East St, that began production of the Waverley, an electric powered vehicle, in the summer of 1898. The following year the city’s first agency, H. T. Hearsey Vehicle Co, opened at 34 Monument Place, to exclusively sell the Waverley, and the manufacturer could not “produce enough ‘runabouts’ at $1,000 (2017: $29,889) each to meet the demand.”
A few local entrepreneurs recognized the future of the automobile and formed other motor vehicle companies in addition to the Waverley Co. Among those early manufacturers of motorized vehicles in the city were the National Automobile & Electric Co, which initially made an electric runabout and later the National, a gasoline or electric powered vehicle; the Indiana Motor & Vehicle Co; and the Patee Motor Cycle Co. One visionary “automobilist,” Carl G. Fisher, promoted automobile and motorcycle races at the Newby Oval on the northeast corner of 30th St. and Central Ave. where he rode his Indiana Flyer motorcycle. He staged a one-mile race on Capital Ave. between two horses and two motorcycles, and later organized races on the one-mile track at the state fair grounds on “Decoration Day, May 30.” To show the commercial value of the automobile and its durability, Fisher set out in his steam automobile with Hal Reed of the Indianapolis News in October 1900 on a tour of Central Indiana to investigate the “practicability of employing automobiles in the distribution of the News.” Over a variety of road conditions, “the machine breasted mud, fresh gravel, limestone hills, and sloppy streets.”
The Indiana Automobile Club was organized in Indianapolis in December 1900 with Carl G. Fisher, president, and by the summer of 1901 “about fifty automobiles” were putt-putting around Indianapolis streets daily, often startling horses. The city’s first “annual automobile and bicycle show” opened to a large crowd in February 1902, and visitors to Indianapolis could catch an “auto cab” at Union Station and be driven around the city for $1.50 (2017: $43) an hour before being dropped off at the Cyclorama Building, 112 W. Market St, to see Indiana built cars like the Waverley, the Haynes-Apperson, the Union ’mobile, and the National “electrobile.”
“Numerous accidents reported from reckless driving” of automobiles and “the safety of pedestrians,” soon led the Indianapolis city council to adopt an ordinance in May 1903 regulating the speed of automobiles at eight miles per hour in the downtown district and twelve miles per hour elsewhere in the city. Owners of “self-propelling machines” were also required to register with the city controller and receive a “plate of initials, the letters of which shall be of white or aluminum, three inches high” to attach to the machine. Twenty-six automobiles were registered the first day, but after two weeks only sixty-seven were on the books. “It is thought there are 175 or 200 in Indianapolis,” although the impression “of the ordinary man is that there must be about 5,000 autos in the city” with the “chug-chugging” or “whizzing around the corner” of a “red devil” or a “white ghost” or “some other species of automobile.” The city controller warned that those “automobilists who have delayed registering had better be expeditious to avoid legal proceedings.” After months of inaction and continuing complaints from the public, the police began enforcing the speed law and the provision requiring drivers to keep their vehicles “to the right” and to “have lights after sundown.” One of those arrested “for riding too fast and without his initials on the back of his machine” was Carl G. Fisher.
By 1904 five companies, employing about 700 men, were manufacturing automobiles in Indianapolis — the Pope Motor Car Co. (Waverley), 139 S. East St.; the National Motor Vehicle Co. (National), East 22nd St. and the Monon Railroad; the Premier Motor Car Co. (Premier), southeast corner Georgia and Shelby; the Marion Motor Car Co. (Marion), 365 W. 15th St.; and the Nordyke-Marmon Co (Marmon), 1101 W. Morris. While these firms were expected to build between 2,500 and 3,000 motor vehicles with a value “in excess of $2,000,000 (2017: $55,373,828) in 1904, the demand locally and across the country exceeded the production capability of all automobile manufacturers. Carl Fisher observed, “There are at this time 263 automobiles in Indianapolis…I believe that this number will be increased by about 125 machines this year. It would probably be doubled if dealers could get machines.”
The “automobile question” — speeding, reckless driving, cutting corners, “an inherent disregard for the law” — brought state regulation designating speed limits and requiring the registration of all motorized vehicles — new and old — in 1905. The free spirit days of the “automobilist” was coming to an end, and orderly motoring was evolving.
Miss Maude Smith has the distinction of being the first “feminine driver of the automobile in Indianapolis.”
Oh, by the way, the horse won.
