It is said, “Necessity is the mother of invention” and in recent times as soon as the personal computer appeared, the laptop bag was created. Similarly, no sooner after the appearance of the smartphone, the selfie stick was developed. These are only simple contemporary examples of this truism. Much earlier, at the end of the nineteenth century, with the invention of the automobile, the need for space to store and repair these new machines became apparent. While barns and stables were adequate for this purpose, few such private structures were available in cities. Small outbuildings began to appear on the lots of homeowners who had acquired one of these motor vehicles. These buildings were initially called “motorbarns,” “motorsheds,” “motordens,” and “motables” before the French word “garage,” meaning “keeping under cover, protection, shelter,” became popular.
One of the first public automobile storage and garage facilities in Indianapolis was built in 1902. Automobile Storage and Repair Co., 25 E. Ohio St., offered to store automobiles “for persons who ride downtown to their businesses” and either recharge electric cars or refuel gasoline cars. A year later, Carl Fisher opened Fisher Automobile Co., 330 N. Illinois St., with a salesroom and garage. The Indiana Automobile Co., 220-224 E. New York St., in addition to its sales department, had “the only garage in town where the largest of automobiles can be safely handled…[and employing] the most competent mechanics…” Another public garage, the Delaware Garage Co., 215 N. Delaware St., opened in 1909, and was “the newest and cleanest place to leave your car downtown.” It had the city’s first electric automatic air pump. Away from the business district, the Morton Place Garage, 1840 N. New Jersey St. and Meridian Place Garage, 22nd and Illinois streets, were built to better serve residential automobile owners.
In the fall of 1905, a building permit was issued to Charles L. Henry, president of The Indianapolis Journal and president and general manager of the Indianapolis & Cincinnati Traction Co., for the construction of one of the city’s first private garages at his home, 1408 N. Meridian St. The brick structure cost $2,000 (2024: $70,958), which was more than the average cost of a house, while most people were paying $200 (2024: $7,096) or less to have a wood frame garage built. Most private garages simply provided automobiles with shelter from the elements and for owners with electric cars a charging station, the current emitting intermittent crackling sounds and sparking flashes of light. A few garages were stocked with tools and doubled as workshops where ardent auto enthusiasts could work on their machines. For those racing daredevils who sought the thrill of speed, a garage provided space to build a speedster and tinker with its engine, maximizing its speed potential.
What would become known as the most famous set of garages began in 1909 with the building of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Inside Turn 1 of the racing oval, fourteen scattered wood frame garages were erected to house racing teams and their speedsters: two large garages accommodating twelve cars each and twelve small garages sheltering three cars each. As the racing teams prepared to send their “thundering machines and daring human life” in the first speed battles around the new motor speedway on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, August 19, 20, and 21, 1909, every garage was stocked with “mechanical parts, oil, tires and accessories of every class” so that following “each test spurt of speed around the course…the trembling monsters of power and swiftness” could be taken back to their garage and completely studied, every weakness carefully noted and nursed and treated so that every ounce of power could be achieved. While the small sheds accommodated most racing teams, a large garage that could stable fifty cars in separate compartments, arranged with a workshop and repair department, was built to hold the bigger racing teams such as the Buick and National.
The long building containing individual garage compartments proved to be the best design to meet the needs of the racing teams, so by 1916 two wooden garage buildings, painted white with green trim and separated by a narrow roadway, had been erected. In addition to windows in the double doors, a row of windows was installed above the doors to let in more natural light. The street between the garages soon became known as “Gasoline Alley,” a nickname coined because the fuel depot was located at one corner of the strip.
The most dramatic change to the speedway garages occurred on Race Day, 1941. Shortly before 7:00 a.m. in the garage housing the Miller Special (No. 35) as gasoline was being drained from the tank of the car, welding sparks from an adjacent garage caused the fuel fumes to explode, igniting a blaze. Flames and dense black smoke soon engulfed the south garage complex with four successive explosions spreading the conflagration. Despite the heroic efforts of firefighters, 24 of the 30 garages were destroyed along with three racecars including the Miller Special which qualified for the race. Seven people were slightly injured and considerable racing supplies, including specially blended fuel that was to be used by four competing cars, were destroyed. “All drivers took their losses with cheerful shrugs. They traded supplies back and forth in order that every man might have and equal opportunity.” The garage complex was rebuilt later in the year, but without a row of windows above the double doors. However, the 500 Mile Race was suspended during World War II, and the garages were not used until racing resumed in 1946. Nearly forty years later the two old east-to-west wooden garage complexes were razed, and the entire garage area was redesigned with three long plain, gray concrete garage buildings erected on a north-to-south axis abutting Gasoline Alley. To the rear of the garages, a fuel building with additional garage space was built. This new garage compound was ready for the 1985 racing season.
While racing enthusiasts anticipated the dropping of the green flag and the roar of the world’s best finely tuned speedsters on Race Day, the days and weeks preceding witnessed long hours in the garages with mechanics and drivers perfecting their machines for maximum speed. The sportsmanship exhibited among racing teams following the 1941 garage fire continued into later years, but in the early days of the Indianapolis 500 there were some dark events.
Days before the 1912 race, driver Teddy Tetzlaff discovered that “an unknown intruder… [allegedly]…opened the gear case on [his] Fiat racer…and dropped in a steel punch with the evident intention of disabling the car….” After this incident, guards were posted nightly in Tetzlaff’s garage and the garages of Ralph DePalma and Bob Burman “to keep prowlers away.” Two years later, as the cars were being run out onto the track to take their positions for the start of the race, it was discovered that Barney Oldfield’s Stutz No. 3 had been tampered “with during the night while locked in the garage.” A quick inspection found that oil had been poured into the engine. Acting swiftly, mechanics tore down and cleaned the contaminated engine part, replaced the spark plugs, and when the green flag dropped Stutz No. 3 sped across the start-finish line with the other racers.
For over 120 years, Americans have come to rely on the garage as an automobile shelter, a workshop, and a storage space proving the versatility of a simple idea.
