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1872-1923—Chicago Fire Department Vehicles

Chicago Chronicle, December 13, 1897

Chicago Tribune, February 7, 1904

A street car truck, by means of which it is proposed to transport fire engines to distant points at a high rate of speed was tested yesterday afternoon in the presence of Assistant Fire Marshall Horan and Battalion Chief Kenyon. It was suggested that such trucks be used in answering alarms in Kensington, West Pullman, South Chicago, and Irondale. The test was made at Seventy-seventh street and Wentworth avenue.

The platform of the truck is eighteen inches from the ground. Then the gates are lifted and assist in holding the engine in place. The truck is then attached to a trolley car and ready for the first run to the fire.

The firemen expressed themselves as being pleased with the working of the truck. The City railway company, which built the truck, is now building another for a hose cart.

Chicago Tribune, February 5, 1923

Today will be a memorable one in the history of Chicago’s fire department. It will mark the passing of the last fire engine horses and the last horse drawn equipment. The department will become 100 per cent motorized.

At 1:30 o’clock, amis appropriate ceremonies, Buck, Teddy, Beauty, and Dan, drawing a fire engine a hose cart, will dash from the house of engine company No. 11 at 10 E. Grand avenue in answer to their last alarm, and when they return they will be without a home. During their absence a new, shiny motor truck will have usurped their place.

The ceremonies will begin shortly before noon, when the mayor, the aldermen, city officials, several hundred firemen with the department band and the fire fans of three generations will assemble at city hall and parade to the fire engine house.

At 12:30 firebox No. 848 at Chicago avenue and State street will be pulled and the old equipment will answer the alarm. The alarm will prove to be a false one and Buck, Teddy, Beauty and Dan will go out to the stables at the house of correction to be sold at auction.

Motorization of the fire department began in 1917 under the direction of John F. Cullerton, then business manager, and has resulted in the savings of millions of dollars to property owners and taxpayers of the city. The department now has nearly 250 pieces of motor equipment.

Mr. Cullerton, who is now fire commissioner, said:

The motorizing of the Chicago fire department cost something more than $1,000,000, but it is saving the taxpayers nearly half a million a year, to say nothing of the saving in fire losses.

Mr. Cullerton pointed out that operation of the motor equipment had made it possible for the department to be operated under the double platoon system, where firemen work twenty-four hours and are off twenty-four hours, without an increase in personnel. With horse drawn equipment each engine house had three men, an engineer to operate the engine, and two drivers, one for the engine and one for the hose cart, who were now available for actual fire fighting duty,

With motor engines this work is all done by one man. He operated the truck and then tends to the motor while it is pumping water. The department now has 126 pumping engines, 37 hook and ladder trucks, 10 squad wagons, 2 high powered pressure pumping wagons, 60 automobiles for fire marshals and battalion chiefs, and 2 wreck, service and gas tank wagons.

PASS INTO HISTORY.

Chicago’s Women Cyclists

Chicago Bicycles

Chicago Tribune, April 15, 1894

Eight strong and courageous bicycle riders of Chicago can bid defiance to the somberless male cyclists to beat them at 100 yard runs. In any kind of weather and over any kind of roads over which wheels can be ridden these women have the pluck and endurance and speed to ride even with the best flyers who put “centuries” to their credit.

These eight representatives of the gentler sex are members of the Century Club of America, a national organization possessing a large membership in this city. A member also makes a “century” run is entailed to a gold bar which is then suspended from the club badge. On the bar are engraved the club initials and the date of the run.

Some of these women always have crowded the line in their hundred-mile jaunts. Two have ridden more “centuries” than any other women in the West.

Mrs. Fred McEwen and Miss Alice Waugh divide between them the honor of being the first to demonstrate that “century” riding is not outside the province of womankind. Miss Waugh was a teacher in the city schools. Her experience was short, for her first “century” was her last.

Mrs. McEwen is a wheelwoman of note. Her rapid, graceful riding is famous throughout the bicycle world. In many a fierce “scorcher” she has easily outstripped the best of the boys. Three bars are suspended from her badge, but she emphatically declares “century ” riding to be nonsense for either men or women, 100 miles in ten hours requiring in her opinion too great and dangerous an expenditure of strength. Although she has been a wheelwoman for seven years and intends to accomplish an immense amount of future riding it is not her intention to undertake another “century.”

Miss Lizzie Hegerty’s fifteen bars bear witness that she is the champion woman cyclist of the West. She has used a wheel for five years. Her 100-mile runs have been principally to Elgin and Aurora and back, but she also has run to Kenosha and Milwaukee. She smiles when describing her first “century.” It was in October, 1891, and was a far greater achievement than her later triumphs, for she rode an old solid tire wheel that weighed fifty pounds, a striking contrast to her present dainty machine of twenty-five pounds weight. She traveled 3,000 miles on the bicycle last summer, and often rides twenty-five miles in a summer evening. Miss Regerty is a tall, handsome young woman, with an exquisite complexion which her excursions in sun and wind do not appear to injure. Her fifteen bars are made into a chain for her watch. If nothing interferes, the chain will be lengthened by a number of additional bars when another season is over. Her cycling dress is a dark Eton suit, the skirt as narrow as possible, with rubber stirrups to keep it in place. She is a bookkeeper in the office of a bicycle company. With superb strength she walks to and from business when the streets are not in condition to make the use of a wheel possible. Her home is three and one-half miles from the office. So her stroll is seven miles daily.

Miss Regerty’s constant companion in her riding is Miss Lucy Porter. That the latter has the brilliant record of fourteen “centuries” is proved by the handsome necklace, composed of fourteen of the Century club bars, that adorns her throat. But though such honors count high Miss Porter can claim greater; she is the first Chicago woman brave and plucky and sensible enough to adopt the use of trousers. She has inaugurated an era. She made her first public appearance in this costume on the occasion of the run Of the Illinois Cycling club to Riverside, early in the month. The suit is trousers extremely graceful and pretty, with no hint of immodesty or unwomanliness. It consists of exceedingly gathered in at the knee; jersey leggins and a long coat-like basque with vest end revere. A bicycle cap gives the last jaunty touch.

The effect is charming, grace and comfort being harmoniously blended. Miss Porter’s sensations on her first experience with this costume are best expressed ia her own words. She said:

“I felt dreadfully nervous. I became so weak I could scarcely ride, but when I entered the club and all the boys came up and shook hands witb me and congratulated me I began to feel better. But I grew nervous when we started out. I fully expected to be hooted and hissed and yelled at all along the route, but, though people stopped and stared at me, I was not tho recipient of any insulting attention until we reached the outskirts of the city, when a group of silly, half-grown boys indulged in cat-calls. But I had got my courage up by that time and didn’t mind it. It took lots of nerve at first, though.”

“How did the new suit affect your riding?”

“I doubled my usual speed, although we were facing the facing the wind. I kept in advance of the club without an effort, which I could not possibly have done in ordinary dress. My wheel seemed five pounds lighter. A skirt is a nuisance. It gets soiled and torn and constantly tangles in the wheel. I was delighted with the experiment and shall never ride in skirts again.”

Miss Porter is a stenographer. She proposes to use her new costume habitually in riding to and from business, keeping a skirt at her office to slip on during working hours that susceptible callers need not be shocked by her attire. This young woman’s independence and courage, wheelmen say, cannot be too highly praised. Her friends believe she has struck the keynote of dress reform not for bicyclIsts only but for a all business-women. Her costume is an ideal work dress.

These two companions rode last summer on their wheels to Clinton, In., and return. Two years ago they explored the interiors of New York, Massachusetts. and New Hampshire in the same manner. Both are expert with the camera; their kodaks are taken on each trip. and they possess fine collections of views of the sections they have visited. They contemplate a trip by wheel to New York and back the coming summer.

Among the Chicago girls first brave enough to attempt the famous “century” run, was Miss Hilda Peterson. Two bars bear testimony to her successful efforts. She is a vigorous and graceful rider, but thinks 100 miles too long a ride for a woman and doubts if she ever attempts to win her third bar. She uses her wheel for pleasure merely, not for honors. Her favorite cycling consists of a bell skirt, Eton jacket, and Stanley cap.

Two sisters in Ravenswood, the Misses Stahl, belong in the honored list; one has made three runs, the other one.

Miss Hattie Bicker has made rather a unique record. She rides a “century” just once a year, but she rides on time and invariably comes in first. She has three bars.

That bicycle riding is conducive to health is the enthusiastic and unanimous verdict of these expert wheel-women. Miss Porter’s innovation in dress is most favorably received. Women who dread to become conspicuous by its use in sunlight are planning to slip out with it on after dark. As the weather becomes milder the boulevards promise to be filled with sprightly girls enjoying the comfort of wearing trousers under the less tell-tale gleams of electricity.

By Victoria Shead March 30, 2021
By 1895 a new crop of athletic young women defied the odds to race bikes, and one woman quickly rode her way to victory and newspaper fame. Her name was Tillie Anderson.

Tillie Anderson was a Swedish immigrant who arrived in Chicago in 1889 as a teenager. A seamstress, Anderson, caught bike fever and saved for a bicycle. Soon she wasn’t just riding but also racing. She raced in 130 races and took first place in 123 of them. During the summer of 1895, she took part in the race over the Elgin-Aurora (Ill.) century course. She finished the race with a time of 6:59:30, beating the previous women’s record for that course by 18 minutes. This being her first race quickly helped to set her mark in HERstory.

Tillie later traveled around the country taking part in six-day bicycle races for women, which involved racing at top speed two hours each evening for six consecutive days. In 1896 she competed in a race in a 16-lap race in Detroit around the city’s auditorium building for a total of 18 hours spread over six days. By the second day of the race, Anderson was not only speeding past the other riders but establishing a new world record for female cyclists when she reached the threshold of 100 miles around the track in an unprecedented four hours, 47 minutes, and 30 seconds.

Tillie’s secret also seemed to be, as one newspaper commented, the ability “to ride and think at the same time.” She liked to keep the lead but always looked shrewdly for the best moment to sprint ahead to the finish line. Anderson was 20 years old when the League of American Wheelmen recognized her as the best woman cyclist globally, which she held until her forced retirement. In 1902 women were barred from racing after another racer, Dottie Farnsworth, was killed in a non-racing circus cycling event. After her racing career, Tillie helped establish bike paths in Chicago and remained an advocate for bicycling through the years. She also remained active in the League of American Wheelman and the Bicycle Stars of the Nineteenth Century organizations until she died in 1965.

In June 2000, 105 years later, Tillie was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame, an undisputed champion and a true pioneer in women’s cycling history.

Tillie Anderson Shoberg wears a costume worn by women cyclists in the early 1890s. Shoberg was known as “Tillie the Terrible Swede.” An immigrant from Sweden, Shoberg was known as the best female bicyclist in the late 1800s. She competed until 1902 when the League of American Wheelmen banned women from racing.

The Referee & Cycle Trade Journal, May 14, 1896

In this connection the Referee regrets to have to call a halt on Miss Tillie Anderson. This young woman has been indulging in a little game to secure some free and valuable advertising that is not usually played by riders of honest ambition and straightforward policy. In the full knowledge that she was ineligible, she forwarded her entry for the Chicago road race, thereby getting, practically by false pretenses, a considerable amount of printed prominence, which to a professional, male or female, is a consideration of much value.

The Wheel, February 9, 1899

Sewing Machine Supplies Profitable.
Manager Robie, of the Excelsior Supply Co., 88 and 90 Lake street, Chicago, is being complimented and justly so by a host of friends, on the magnificent new quarters of his company. They are new in every sense of the word, as the fittings, from the large plate glass windows to the numerous office fittings, are all brand-new and the four stories of the building are well filled with a splendid array of bicycle and sewing machine supplies, which practically covers everything the trade re- quires. Mr. Robie stated that it was his opinion that bicycle dealers could with heavy profit to themselves carry a line of sewing machine supplies in conjunction with their bicycle supplies, and many of the firm’s customers have dedcided to do so.

The Excelsior Supply Co. has just gotten out one of the neatest and most handsome 30- page lithographed books, in which the story of Excelsior is told in verse, with lithographed illustrations. A peculiar feature of this book is, there is no suggestion of advertising in its pages beyond the word “Excelsior,” made famous by Longfellow. The little book is a work of art and is well worth securing. It will be sent to anyone in the trade if requested. It is a little book that would find room on the library table and reflects much credit on the artistic taste of Manager Robie.

The Chicago Chronicle, Mar 22, 1896

Praise From Susna B. Anthony.
Miss Susan B. Anthony’s words of praise on the bicycle will be read with pleasure by hosts of wheelwomen everywhere. She says:

I think the wheel has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. It gives a woman a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. And bloomers are the proper thing for wheeling. It is as I have said-dress to suit the occasion. A woman doesn’t want skirts and flimsy laces to catch in the wheel. Safety as well as modesty demands bloomers or extremely short skirts. You know women only wear foolish articles of dress to please men’s eyes, anyway.

St. Louis Republic, December 12, 1897

The St. Louis Republic, December 12, 1897

Tillie Anderson said:

I think it is a delightful sport and the best possible exercise, though I regularly practice club-swinging, dumb-bell lifting, a little boxing, take lots of outdoor exercise and look after my health as best I can.

Three years ago I was very fat in the legs, almost as much so as Miss Peterson, one of my competitors in the St. Louis race, is today. My muscles were not at all developed, though it was but a short time when the fat began to peel off and give way to sinewy strength. My abdominal and arm muscles also developed rapidly, and I have a peculiarly prominent one in the back, due I think, to bending over the wheel.

It does not fatigue me in the least to take part in these long- distance races, and I am just as fresh after a two-hour’s run as when I commence,” and her appearance bore out her statement. It was just after she had won a great victory at the Coliseum that she received The Republic
representatives.

Minneapolis Tribune, June 7, 1902

Mrs. Albert Spencer, better known in Minneapolis as Dottie Farnsworth, died yesterday at Salamanca, N. Y., of blood poisoning. Her first name was Leona.

Mr. Spencer was present at the time of death, but the exact circumstances are not known. It is understood, however, that while racing in the cycle dazzle her wheel ran off the top, and death resulted from injuries received in the fall. Mrs. Spencer left the race track several years ago, when she married Mr. Spencer. For a number of years she had been a prominent bicycle rider and had won many prizes all over the country.

Her married life was happy, but she decided to take up racing again, and was in the East to fill engagements. Her death was not wholly unexpected, as telegrams had been received in Minneapolis announcing that she was ill.

Mrs. Farnsworth had started for New York, but was notified at Chicago. Her father, A. W. Farnsworth, is a resident of Minneapolis, where Mrs. Spencer spent most of her life. The body will be brought to Minneapolis.

J. Lawson, terrible swede,

Bygone Days of Chicago—Review

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Bygone Days in Chicago
Author: Frederick Francis Cook
Published: April 9, 1910
Publisher: A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago

Inter Ocean, April 17, 1910

During the war for the Union, Chicago was ever a stage on which one event followed another with startling rapidity, often picturesquely and always dramatically. As a prelude to the great conflict, it was here, in 1860, that a national convention in the name of freedom challenged slavery for a struggle for supremacy by the nomination of Abraham Lincoln, and here, also that another national convention pronounced the war on freedom’s side a failure, when the slaughter had gone for more than years. It was in Chicago that a great rebel host was in durance—an ever present menace to life and property—and for the liberation of this unorganized and unkempt horde a conspiracy was hatched, though happily only to be effectually scotched. Here, again, a leading newspaper was suppressed by military edict for alleged rebel sympathies, and it was in Chicago that inspired singers armed the nation with “The Battle Cry of Freedom” and many another war poem that strengthened the cause of if the Union army as an army with banners.

So begins Frederick F. Cook’s volume of reminiscences, off the press of A.C. McClurg & Co. yesterday with the title, Bygone Days in Chicago: Recollections of the Garden City in the ’60s.

There are a good many people in Chicago who know from personal experience just exactly what Chicago was like in 1860. But as there are now in Chicago something like 1,500,000 people who do not, it is well to give some general facts before getting farther quotations from Mr. Cook’s book. Here are a few that give a general idea of the place.

In 1860 Chicago was growing up and was at the awkward stage and had all the confidence of untried youth. The city was just twenty-three years old, having been incorporated in 1837, with a population of about 3,000—the first census, that of 1840, giving a total of 4,479. In 1860 it had 109,206. A decade of unparalleled railroad building was just over, and into the city ran eleven trunk lines and twenty branch roads—a total mileage of 4,736 with earnings of $20,000,000 a year.

The water works at Chicago avenue had just been completed and some progress in laying water pipes, gas pipes and sewers had been made. Paved streets were beginning to take the place of plank roads or bottomless mud; board walks were being replaced in spots by stone. Street cars ran south on State street to Twenty-Second street, and on Madison street and on North Clark street. The Illinois Central suburban service to Hyde Park had been begun.

It was a queer looking city, and the queerest thing about it was in the very act of pulling itself out of the mud by its bootstraps. You see, the busiest part of Chicago was only two feet above the lake level and these two feet were black muck. When the spring and fall rains came, the result can be imagined. The facetious signs that used to stick up out of the middle of the street—”Man Lost Here”—”Keep Out—No Bottom”—”Shortest Road to China”—were fine examples of many a true word being spoken in jest. And the city was engaged in raising the level “about the height of the mayor”—“Long John” Wentworth who stood 6 feet and 7 inches. Speaking exactly, the city council had ordered a level of fourteen feet, which meant about twelve feet of filling over about 1,200 acres. About one-half the houses and sidewalks were on stilts and the other half was down about lake level, walkimh was more like going up and down stairs than anything else.

The crops had been poor, the panic of 1857 was still in the air, a momentous presidential election was on hand; the mutterings of Civil war were plain to the ear. Nevertheless the Chicago of 1860, though pretty nearly naked, was unashamed—and busy, energetic, happy and boastful. Its spirit can be measured by the fact that it had the assurance to demand and secure the Republican national convention, build “The Wigwam” for its deliberations, welcome 40,000 visitors, and take the lead in the fight that nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency.

Mr. Cook’s reminiscences are told from the viewpoint of a newspaper man.

The Tribune

Times

Journal

Post

Consequently, he writes in a sketchy way, touching only the high places for the morst part, with much of personal opinion in his comments.

In the ’60s Chicago had not so far outgrown its infancy but that the courthouse square was the central spot of the city, just as it is in every Illinois town today. Of the courthouse and its surroundings Mr. Cook had many interesting things to say, including the following:

Court House Square

In a way, also, the Court House was everybody’s monitor and guide. It told you when to rise, when to eat your dinner, when to knock off work, when to jubilate, when to mourn, and, above all, it helped you to locate fires; for the clang of its great bell could be heard in almost every part of the town. Aye, how it rang paens of victory for Donelson for Vicksburg, and Gettysburg, and finally for Richmond, when that stronghold fell! And how its slow, solemn monotone voiced the anguish of all hearts, when the body of the slain Lincoln was borne through the shrouded streets of the mourning city, to rest for a day and a mght beneath the dome of the city’s capitol, that a stricken people might once more look upon the transfigured face of their beloved dead! And, finally, how it clanged, and clanged, and clanged again, on that fearful mght of fire, each stroke heightening the terror that possessed the fleeing multitude, while the “fiend” that lashed the elements to such boundless fury, compelled it to sound its own death-knell.

In 1862 the Court House Square was surrounded by an oddly assorted architectural hodgepodge, strikingly typical of the various stages of the city’s development, from the primitive “frame” of the thirties, to the new, six-storied marble Sherman House, at this time the finest building in the city, as well as one of the best appointed hotels in the country. Because of the panic of 1857, and the subsequent war, the Chicago of this period represents a status quo of nearly a full decade. Thereafter, from 1865, down to the time of the fire, the city was in an exceptional state of flux, and so much of the dilapidation of former days disappeared, that it was in quite a large way a comparatively new downtown Chicago that was destroyed on October 9, 1871.

Where Washington Street bounds the Court House Square (then enclosed by a high iron fence), there remained down to 1864 nearly a block of original prairie, a dozen feet below the plank sidewalk; and when, in 1863, the plot was tenanted by a winter circus, its patrons descended to their seats as into a cellar. When, in the middle sixties, the building boom set in, Smith & Nixon erected on the site now occupied by the Chicago Opera House a fine Music Hall, which was opened, if I am not mistaken, with a concert by Gottschalk. Among other events I recall as taking place therein was a state billiard tournament, wherein Tom Foley, the veritable stand-by of to-day, won the State championship, a circumstance which throws a calcium light on the status of the game at that period; a concert by “Blind Tom”; and a lecture by William Lloyd Garrison, on “Reconstruction.”

In marked contrast to the vacant plot, and neighboring it on the corner of La Salle Street, stood one of the tallest-steepled churches in the city, the First Baptist. This, in 1864, was taken down bit by bit and reconstructed on its present site, Morgan and Monroe Streets, there becoming the Second Baptist. In its place rose Chicago’s first fine Chamber of Commerce, to be followed after the fire by a second trade-temple of similar dimensions, only the outer walls of which now remain, as the substructure to a skyscraper.

The southwest corner, across La Salle Street from the Baptist church, calls for special mention. It was at this time occupied by a brick building of two stories and basement, among the first dwellings of that material erected in Chicago. It was originally the home of P.F.W. Peck; and before it was demolished, about 1867, after a somewhat checkered existence, it had been some years the headquarters of the police department, with a calaboose in the basement.

The old landmark was succeeded by one of the finest buildings in the city, with the Union National Bank for its chief tenant. After the fire the bank was temporarily domiciled at the northwest corner of Market and Madison Streets, which one-sided locality with Field, Leiter & Co.’s establishment, both wholesale and retail, on the northeast corner, and the Board of Trade opposite became for a time the business focus of the city. Within a year or so, the old Peck residence site was rehabilitated with an even more substantial building than the one destroyed; and so this intersection, when the Chamber of Commerce had been rebuilt, became once again the city’s chief business centre. In addition to the Union National Bank, then the leading financial institution in the West, the new building accommodated the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Associated Press, the Western Army Headquarters (in charge of General Phil. Sheridan), another bank, and many important interests besides. Nevertheless, though of goodly size, this structure was in 1893 ruthlessly razed to give place to the present Stock Exchange building. Thus, in its various stages, this corner has been preeminently typical of the city’s vicissitudes and progress; while the frequent changes in its physical aspect emphasize the difficulties of the chronicler in undertaking to reproduce with certitude any particular epoch in the city’s physical history.

Mr. Cook’s volume is out of the ordinary among such works in that it devotes several chapters to Chicago’s underworld—which was quite different from that of 1910. Here are some of the things he has to say:

The average young man of half a century ago, as compared with his kind to-day, was easily impressed by externals, and as in the down town night life it was invariably the gambler on whom the lime light centered, it is small wonder that our ‘Johnnie’ fell an easy victim to the glamour of the extravaganza in which this pinchbeck cavalier was ever the acclaimed hero. A veritable night-hawk, the blackleg was seldom on view until well along in the afternoon, and then only to do a ‘stunt’ at sidewalk ‘mashing. The silly caramel girl, in her matinee finery, had as yet no existence, for the matinee itself awaited introduction. No, when in those days you caught the flash of an eye from under some milliner’s ‘dream,’ you made no mistake in assigning the wearer to the ‘red-light’ district; for the approved street costume of the period was exceedingly quiet, and a ‘symphony in color,’ such as may now without comment be displayed by the demurest maiden, was in those days an unmistakable class signal, and vastly in afternoon-promenade evidence.

No picture of down town street life in the early sixties would be in any manner a true reflex that failed to show in high relief the part played by the Underworld—which for the nonce might well be called the Upperworld—for was it not literally on top? Even had it not so flagrantly challenged the eye the men aggressively swagger, the women flaringly spectacular—it would still have attracted large attention, because of the absence of other ‘goings-on’ to divide interest with it. A process of elimination from the present-day showing of any American city of say two hundred thousand inhabitants (about Chicago’s aggregate at the close of the war) will readily make this plain. There was only one permanent place of amusement, where to-day (apportioned to same population) there are half a score of various sorts, and more or less ‘continuous.’ There were no race meetings to bulk the pygmy jockey into a Goliath of popularity; no ring contests to beat the ‘bruiser’ into pulpy notoriety; no professional baseball to apotheosize the doubly-twisted ‘twirler’; no football contests to crown with bay or laurel the buttressed ‘centre,’ rock-rooted ‘fullback,’ or foot-winged ‘rusher’; no rowing matches to distinguish the ‘stroke’ above his fellows; unheard of, and certainly unplayed, were such diversions as polo, golf, tennis, cricket, lacrosse, hockey, hand-ball, basket-ball, and even innocuous croquet; no such objects of adoration as champion pedestrians, long-distance runners, spindle-shanked sprinters, high-jumpers, vaulters, weight-putters, or other fame-devouring athletes; no record-or neck-breaking cyclists; no death-courting or death-dealing chauffeurs; surely no sun-soaring aviators; and not even a billiard champion, until some years later, when my old friend, genial Tom Foley, won that distinction at the first State tournament. There was not a club in the whole city for a quiet ‘sit-in’; no horse, dog, poultry, or flower shows; no skating-rinks; indeed, no popular pastimes of any sort; while even the picturesque red-shirt lads, who but a few years before had ‘run wid de masheen’ and finished every fire with a free, all-round fight, had been summarily abolished. So it only remains to mention McVicker’s Theatre, home of the tragic muse, for a ‘steady, with an occasional variation of circus or minstrel troupe. In these circumstances, is it matter for wonder that in the ‘whirl of the town,’ the men and women of the Underworld were the unchallenged top-liners? And while the shame thus flaunted no doubt acted as a deterrent on the many, on more than a few the gay plumage permitted only to those who threaded the ‘primrose path of dalliance,’ exerted a baleful fascination.

About this time there came into common use the term ‘war widow,’ to denote a species of frailty quite unknown before. When the modern Ulysses went forth to battle, his Penelope, it is to be feared, did not always rise to the possibilities of her self-denying opportunities, neither wove by day nor undid by night, unneeded webs against the importunities of unwelcome suitors; nor yet devoted herself wholly to keeping the hearth swept in readiness for her hero’s return. No, in only too many instances (especially in the absence of the restraining influence of children) the spouse, if still young and moderately fair to look upon, made undue haste to invest her ‘substitute’ hoard in finery for the street, approaching ever nearer in her unrestraint to the devotees of pleasure. From this it resulted that outlying abodes were exchanged for ‘light house- keeping’ accommodations on the upper floors of business blocks, hitherto consecrate to guileless masculinity. And so it came about that an evil theretofore strictly confined to “establishments” apart, intruded free-lance fashion wherever it might find domiciliary tolerance. Prior to the irruption of the ‘war widow,’ spiders of her variety had spread their gaudy nets only in the light of day as part of ‘Vanity Fair,’ and with an ulterior eye only to possible entanglements of over-curious ‘flies.’ But now, in the full adornment of war paint, the ‘bereaved’ went obtrusively forth to seek her prey under the gaslight; and, in an incredibly short time this evil grew to such proportions that the police were compelled to take cognizance of it. Thereafter frequent perfunctory ‘clean-ups’ followed, and the ‘widow,’ with or without a war record, became an established police-court habitué.

It was the vogue of the period for the gambling chiefs to have for consorts the most notorious keepers of ‘establishments.’ There seemed under the circumstances a peculiar fitness in this arrangement,—a veritable triumph for the law of natural selection—and because of this connection, and the large publicity given to occasional ‘pulls’ (always made as spectacular as possible on the part of the police), these “Madams” were the tavern talk from the lakes to the Rockies.

Few who were of the Chicago of the middle sixties and in any manner ‘men-about-town,’ can have forgotten the introduction of a game that has been described as consisting of one fellow calling out numbers, another after a while shouting ‘Keno,’ and a whole lot of other fellows vociferating, Oh, h—ll!’ For months little else was talked about. Was it gambling? Ah, that was the question! The ‘sports’ said no, as ‘keno’ was only another name for a certain innocent German pastime called ‘lotto.’ The police, meanwhile, couldn’t come to any conclusion— indeed, how could they, with their ‘rake-off in mind?—and so matters were allowed to drift until the craze passed all bounds. For faro and like orthodox gambling devices Chicago had never been ‘open’ in the sense that Western cattle or mining towns are, where you enter the tiger’s den directly from the street, and the best ground-floors are reserved for the animal’s sinuous disporting. No, faro had to be played at least one flight up, and with some pretence to closed doors. But keno! ah, that was different! First floors on Randolph Street, between Clark and State then—par excellence the gambling ‘midway’— were soon renting at exorbitant figures; and, spacious as they might be, there was seldom sufficient room to accommodate would-be patrons. On Saturday nights in particular the crowds that gathered not only blocked the sidewalks, but filled up a good part of the street; while above all the din and uproar of this congregated loaferdom, the casual wayfarer could plainly hear the urn manipulator’s call, ‘Sixty-four!’ ‘Seventy-two!’ ‘Eleven!’ ‘Forty-three!’ or whatever might be the numbers drawn;
and, over all, in due course, the triumphant ‘Keno!’

An order from headquarters to ‘shut up’ would at any time have sufficed to put all these establishments in- stantly out of business. But such a matter-of-fact proceeding would have brought no grist to the Armory Station police mill. Accordingly (when the scandal had finally made some action imperative), realizing that even an appearance of ‘shutting up shop’ would seriously cut down their ‘divvy,’ the powers determined to recoup by a big ‘pull’ with bail-bond pickings at a dollar a head for the justices, and five dollars or more per victim to the professional bailors and all this, properly proportioned between captain and sergeants, promised to make life reasonably worth living to those in charge of the Armory precinct, which at this time included the entire south division.

The police selected a Saturday night, of course, and the hour when there would be most to ‘pull off.’ While practically the entire force was brought to the scene, there were yet only policemen enough to guard the various outlets simultaneously, with a reserve squad for escort duty, which in the circumstances barely sufficed to cope with the contents of a single establishment at a time. Hence nearly a dozen trips were made, and while the raid began before ten o’clock, it was long after midnight before the last
‘den’ was emptied.

To facilitate the bailing process, both the police justices of that day, ex-Mayor Isaac N. Milliken and ex-school-teacher A. D. Sturtevant, were on hand; and the gravity with which they piled their desks with greenbacks was exceeded only by the unction with which the bailors pocketed their fat pickings.

A raid so wholesale had never before been attempted, and most likely has not been seen since. The old Armory was a goodly sized building, three stories high. Soon it was packed from bottom to top with victims, and still they came. There was a big barn in the rear, and when that was filled, a lot were corralled in the open street, and separated from the thousands of outsiders drawn to the scene by a barrier of blue-coats. Sunday morning came, and still the bailing grind went on. Then an odd thing happened. The justices ran out of printed blanks, and it became necessary to write out the entire rigmarole on sheets of foolscap; and to this service every policeman capable of wielding a pen, and who might be spared from guard duty, was impressed.

It was by no means an ordinary ‘catch’ that was brought to land. As everything had been conducted for weeks with wide-open doors, many a staid burgher was caught, who had dropped in merely to see the fun. But in ‘the eyes of the law’ that made no difference; and while the patient wife waited by the fireside for the coming of her liege, ‘Smith’ or Jones’ of record was eating his heart out, while waiting through weary hours for the particular Jones or Smith whom he stood for, to be called to receive his charter of liberty.

While hundreds of the well-to-do were thus enabled to spend the Sabbath (or what was left of it) in the agitated bosoms of their families, other hundreds, whom the game had perchance served scurvily, were compelled to take ‘pot luck’ of unsweetened mush and black coffee with the turnkey until Monday morning, when they were either released through the good offices of friends, or joined the procession to the Bridewell, then a dilapidated rookery in the region of Franklin and Harrison Streets.

As all students of American history know, the part played by Chicago and Illinois in the great rebellion was large and important.

Yet the beginning was feeble and almost grotesque, though unsuccessful. The South, thanks to its friends in the Buchanan Cabinet, was far better supplied with arms and ammunition than the North, and apparently no part of the North was in worse shape as Illinois.

April 19, 1861, four days after the first call for 75,000 men, Governor Yates, the famous War Governor of Illinois, telegraphed General H. K. Swift of the militia, with headquarters at Chicago, to get ready with all speed as strong a force as he could raise. The next day a messenger arrived from Governor Yates instructing General Swift to take possession of Cairo, which was plainly a strategic point in the war game, as both Missouri and Kentucky had outspoken pro-Southern Governors. Within two days General Swift was on his way with four brass six pounder guns, forty-six horses and 800 men. Mr. Cook says:

It is the proud boast of the Illinoisan that his state’s total enlistment for the war was 237,488 men, a showing both per quota and enrollment far above that made by any other state—and that as Governor Yates could say with peculiar pride: “Thus it will be seen that Illinois alone of all of the loyal states of the Union, furnishes the proud record of not only having escaped the draft without receiving credit for her old regiments, but of starting under a new call (which had come on Jan. 17, 1865, for 300,000 additional men) with her quota largely diminished by thousands of veterans already re-enlisted.”

Here are some of the interesting things Mr. Cook has to say about war times in Chicago:

The exceptional position of Illinois among her loyal sister States, as the only one whose quotas were placed in the field without resort to the draft, has been frequently attributed to the fact that it gave Abraham Lincoln to the nation, and so had a special incentive to sustain him in his arduous task. But, as I attempt to evaluate the various influences that joined in the proud result, certain other factors urge themselves for recognition.

Who was it that said, ‘Let me write the songs of a people and I care not who makes its laws’? But great songs have no fixed habitation. Indeed, frequently they are popularized far from the scene of their birth: so much is due to the manner of their exploitation so frequently to some exceptional interpretation. Was it merely a coincidence that the maker of the war’s most inspiring lyrics, and their ‘creators’ (as the stage people say) and most gifted celebrants were local co-workers? These battle paeans were heard in Chicago, where they were born, as nowhere else. If inspiration requires a congenial atmosphere for spontaneous expression, there was much here to call it forth.

The Lumbards, Frank and Jules, were notabilities years before the war. Through these gifted brothers singing had fairly got into Chicago’s blood; and so all was ready to give a whole-hearted welcome to the gift of the muses, as a form of emotional expression suited to the hour. Jules G. Lumbard, in his prime, was regarded as one of the finest bassos in the country; and to this rare gift fortune added a presence that happily still makes this master-singer in his hale old age one of the marked figures of the city. Frank’s voice was a sonorous tenor; and, if not quite the equal of the brother’s in purity, it had a quality all its own, a triumphant heartiness that irresistibly compelled his auditors to follow where he led, and to ring out the chorus as if the life of the country depended on each individual doing his very utmost.

Mr. George P. Upton shared to the full the emotions of the hour. In his recently published ‘Musical Memories,’ through which those who were of the elder time can so truly live many experiences over again, he thus associates these singers with some significant incidents:

When President Lincoln issued his second call for troops, ‘The Battle Cry of Freedom’ occurred to him (Dr. George F. Root) as a motive for a song, while he was reading the document. He dashed it off hurriedly the next morning at the store. There was to be a public meeting on the same day in the Court House Square. Frank and Jules Lumbard, who were the singers laureate of the war period, came to the store to get something new to sing. The Doctor gave them ‘The Battle Cry.’ They ran it over once or twice, went to the meeting, and shouted it in their trumpet tones, and before the last verse was finished thousands joined in the refrain. It spread from that Square all over the country. It was heard in camps, on the march, upon the battle field. It became the Northern Marseillaise.

When defeat followed defeat, and hearts were wrung to the breaking point, there was in the wide territory tributary to Chicago no instrumentality to rouse men to renewed action to ever higher duties and sacrifices comparable to these rarely gifted singers. No rally for the Union within a wide radius was complete without the promised presence of their war quartette; and whensoever they were advertised to appear, there was never a question as to the success of the meeting, for then the whole country side for fifty miles around would be on hand to follow their lead in ‘Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom.’ Frank, the quartette’s leader, was an incarnation of optimism, an embodiment of the spirit of enthusiasm; and, whatever the situation, however oppressed the hearts of the people, he possessed the gift to impart his own high spirits to his surroundings. He just did things in a big, exuberant way; dispelled clouds and made the sun shine in spite of itself; forced men and women to sing and sing again, and so turned heart-heaviness into sacrificial rejoicing.

Therefore, taking into account the naive character of the community, together with the storm and stress of the times, it should not be difficult to understand why the Lumbards, through their exceptional gift, became the voice of a popular emotion nay, its apotheosis and, rather than the many honored above their deserts, deserve to be held in grateful remembrance by their compatriots; and, above all, by the people of the Middle West.

In these days of the general worship of Lincoln, it is difficult to realize such scenes as attended the Democratic national convention held in Chicago in 1864, which nominated McClellan on a platform that declared the war a failure and demanded that “immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities.” Here are some of the things the author has to say of this conversation:

While the attitude anathematized as ‘Copperheadism’ may remain a more or less disputed question in the sphere of political psychology, certain it is that this ‘ism’ was often extremely aggressive, even though its temerities were as a rule wholesomely tempered by the ebb and flow of the tide of war. And so, when for the nonce the various disgruntled segregations found themselves components of an enormous aggregation, under circumstances particularly favorable for kindling a ‘fire in the rear’ of the Union armies, the brands thus adventitiously thrown together threatened a general conflagration.

In the deliberations of the Convention, which took place in a huge auditorium specially erected for the occasion at the southern end of the lake front, restraint of speech was for obvious reasons deemed advisable; but outside, at impromptu gatherings about the leading hotels, most of the speakers (when addressing what can be characterized only as howling mobs) lashed themselves into paroxysms of denunciation of everything in any manner tending to give encouragement or effective support to the war.

The Sherman House, most centrally located, was the headquarters of the ultra leaders. Here Vallandigham and his immediate retinue put up; and here also was to be found the Indiana delegation, which, under the cloud-compelling leadership of the ‘Tall Sycamore of the Wabash,’ was the most blatant of them all. A triumphant mob surged at all hours about this hostelry, and its cries of ‘Speech!’ ‘Speech!’ would bring to the balcony first one and then another of the popular favorites the measure of acclaim with which their appearance was greeted being usually in proportion to lengths of time they had served in some ‘Lincoln bastille.’

On the morning following one of the evening gatherings during the Convention week a ‘Copperhead orgy’ the Republican papers called it the Times described the outbreak as follows:
‘The demonstration last night was not a meeting merely; it was a whole constellation of meetings. The grand centre of the city Randolph, Clark, Washington, and La Salle Streets, about the Court House, as well as the Court House Square presented one solid mass of human beings; and these were independent of crowds that had gathered in Bryan Hall and other halls. During the entire evening there were at all times five speakers holding forth to these tens of thousands of assembled citizens.’

Of the utterances of the speakers who harangued the great mass from different improvised rostrums the principal ones being the east and south balconies of the Sherman House the following extracts from the Times reports are fair samples:

Hon. S. S. Cox, of Ohio (later of New York) ‘Abraham Lincoln has deluged the country with blood, created a debt of four thou- sand million dollars, and sacrified two millions of human lives. At theNovemberelectionwewilldamnhimwitheternalinfamy. Even Jefferson Davis is no greater enemy of the Constitution.’

Hon. W. W. O’Brien, of Peoria ‘We want to try Lincoln as Charles I. of England was tried, and if found guilty will carry out the law.’

Stambaugh, of Ohio ‘If I am called upon to elect between the freedom of the nigger and disunion and separation, I shall choose the latter. You might search hell over and find none worse than Abraham Lincoln.’

Hon. H. S. Orton, of Wisconsin ‘In Wisconsin Lincoln has no party, except his officers and satraps that is all there is left. I pledge you my word, that that is all that is left in the State of Wisconsin. The collectors of the revenue, the assessors and their dependents, are all the strength that Abe Lincoln has in these free States. Are they to rule over us? Are you going to submit to it? (Cries of ‘No.’ ‘No.’) God bless the draft. It proves that we have touched bottom, and got to the last ditch, the last man and the last dollar. The stars of heaven are blotted out, the moon will refuse to shine, the sun will rise no more in the fair firmament of the American Republic.’

Hon. and Rev. Henry Clay Dean, of Iowa ‘The American people are ruled by felons. With all his vast armies Lincoln has failed! failed! FAILED! FAILED! And still the monster usurper wants more victims for his slaughter pens. I blush that such a felon should occupy the highest gift of the people. Perjury and larceny are written all over him. Ever since the usurper, traitor, and tyrant has occupied the presidential chair the Republican party has shouted war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt. Blood has flowed in torrents, and yet the thirst of the old monster is not quenched. His cry is ever for more blood.’

Compare this language in this scene:

Hours before the sad procession was due, people by hundreds of thousands they had come, a mighty host, from all parts of the Northwest were massed along the route, especially on the lake front, which, from Park Row to Washington Street, presented such an assemblage as few occasions bring together.

Newspaper work prevented me from falling into line until three o’clock in the morning, and even at that unusual hour so extended was the line that I was nearly an hour and a half in reaching the bier.

I therefore quickly fell once more into line, this time at the corner of Madison and La Salle Streets, whereas before I had begun two blocks farther east on Madison. While the double file moved at a slow but fairly even pace (first west on Madison, then north on La Salle Street, then east on Randolph, then south on Clark, then west on Washington, and thence once more through the square, up the steps, and into the rotunda).

1897—Chicago Bicycle Tags

Chicago Bicycles

Chicago Chronicle, August 3, 1897

Yesterday the day the recently ordained wheel tax went into effect, 950 licenses, eighty-six were for one-horse vehicles, twenty-eight for two-horse vehicles and one for a four-horse vehicle. The rush was the greatest that has ever been encountered in a single day in the city collector’s office, and an extra staff of clerks had to be employed to issue the licenses and tags in the offices of both collector and city clerk.

The demand for bicycle tags began with the opening of the office at 9 o’clock. It was noy as great as expected, perhaps, because of the fight now pending before Judge Tuley to test the validity of the tax measure, but the clerks were kept busy. The handling of nearly 1,000 persons in six hours was no light matter. If 1,000 saloon licenses had been issued during the day the total receipts would have been $500,000, but as the amount for each license averaged less than $1 the cash showing was not large.

No Arrests Made Yet.
Wheelmen who are waiting, and do not know what to do about getting bicycle tags, need not be alarmed, as the officials say they will order no arrests made for some time. The actual date for beginning operations against delinquents has not been decided upon. At present the city collector’s staff of clerks has all it can do to take care of those who are coming in voluntarily, and has no time to waste on speculation as to others. Those who applied for licenses yesterday were largely persons who wanted small numbers for the sake of being able to say they were among the first to get tags, and the collector feels assured the real rush will come on when the courts decide the validity of the ordinance.

The first man to appear at the bicycle license window was Charles E. Carlson of 1283 North Center street. He demanded license and tag 1, but was told Mayor Harrison had that number, and also that 110 numbers had already been issued on advance applications. He had to be satisfied with No. 111. Fred Lindh was next at the window, receiving No. 112, and J. and John H. Hibbler were given the two numbers following.

List of the First 100.
The first 100 bicycle licenses and tags to be issued were as follows:

How the Tag Reads.
The license certificate issued with each tag reads this way:

On the back of each license certificate the ordinance is printed in full, so that a wheelman possessed of a certificate and tag may know precisely to what regulations he is subject and to what rights he is entitled.

Many prominent wheelmen came into the office in the course of the day, either to pay the license fee or to inquire whe the ordinance will be enforced and whether or not violators will be subject to the penalties therein provided, “Baby Bliss,” the most prominent of all fat riders, was on hand early, but he had to be satisfied with a larger number than he wanted. Many bicycle girls also joined in the rush and took their places in the line to await their turn at the window. Four clerks were kept busy from 9 o’clock until closing time, 4:30, issuing the receipts from the collector’s office and giving out the certificates and the tags from the city clerk’s office.

There was hardly so much of a rush for vehicle licenses, as there is more money involved for permits for that class and persons who own buggies, wagons and trucks and use them privately want to know whether the law is constitutional or not before they invest in tags and licenses.

Tags for One-Horse Vehicles.
These secured the first twenty-five tags issued for one-horse vehicles:

For Two-Horse Conveyances.
The first twenty-five licenses for two-horse conveyances were as follows:

The only license for a four-horse vehicle went to C. H. Phelps, and he paid $5.50 for it.

Deputy Collector Senff helped City Clerk Loeffler with the work yesterday, and this is what he says to wheel riders who are wondering whether they will be arrested or not:

The police have not been instructed to arrest persons who fail to comply with the terms of the ordinance. That will come later on when we have finished with those who are willing to pay without questioning the validity of the measure.

The assurance was also given that in the event of the ordinance being declared illegal all money paid in under it would be promptly refunded.

1868-1902—Chicago Bicycles History

Chicago Bicycles

Chicago Tribune, August 26, 1868
The aristocratic denizens of Michigan and Wabash avenues are just now experiencing quite a sensation, produced by the advent of one of the famous Paris velocipedes. This fashionable means of locomotion, upon which the Parisians, over enthusiastic over novelties, have liberally expended money and muscle, promises to receive much attention in this country. Already universal curiosity to see and use the vehicle is expressed by the Chicagoan, and it may be prophesied that shortly “Shank’s mare” will become totally extinct as a locomotive power. This sample of the favorite French vehicle was recently imported by Mr. Augustus Wheeler, who resides at No. 932 Indiana avenue, and has been on exhibition at the Health Lift rooms, on Dearborn street, near Madison, for a few days past. It must be acknowledged as a valuable and wonderful invention, indicative of the rapid advance of science.

It has gained the favor of the Parisians, who are ecstatic in their commendation of it. But a few years ago the velocipede was used only as a plaything for children, but its merits and capabilities have gradually been seen and understood, until now it has in its improved form become quite general in use. The one in the possession of Mr. Wheeler can be witnessed almost every day on the avenues, speeding along at a rate almost rivaling Dexter’s latest time.

It consists of two large wheels lightly constructed, a steering wheel in front and in its line behind another of equal size. It must be kept in an upright position while in motion by the skill of the rider, who, naturally, at his first attempt in managing it, meets with little encouragement. The power for propulsion is applied by the feet, which are placed upon a treadle attached to the hub of the front wheel. A bifurcated arrangement, constructed of iron or steel, extends from the hub as high as the breast of the rider, seated between the two wheels, who guides the vehicle by a lever worked by the hands. To acquire proficiency in riding much time, care and patience must needs be expended, but the art once learned is as fascinating and beautiful even as skating.

The seat can easily be adapted to the use of ladies by the construction of a seat after the style of a side-saddle. It is said that by a rider of mediocre experience some fifteen miles an hour can easily be attained without the slightest danger of capsizing should care be exercised.

In scientific circles it is verily the sensation of the day the acquisition promising to make services inroads upon the customary modes of traveling in the city. Much is expected of it, and that it will become general in use throughout the Western States is certain. Its adoption in apposition to hacks, buggies, street cars and like vehicles, for the transportation of the human species, will bring about an epoch in the history of science, which will crush those monopolies of the day and give to the people healthful and invigorating exercise.

Inter Ocean, November 7, 1872
Chicago Evening Mail, November 12, 1872
Originally published in the New York Times.

THE BYCICLE (sic).
Why It Is a Failure—Why It Is of No Value in the Absence of Horses.
The utter failure of the velocipede as a substitute for the saddle-horse is just now emphasized by the fact that, in the present dearth of horses, no one has alluded to the velocipede as a possible solution of the problem how the business man is to reac his office, in case the cars and stages should cease running. It is true that a gleam of hope has illumined the sadness of those injudicious persons who, four years ago, built or bought hundreds of velocipedes, which they have never been able to sell. They have now exhumed a few of these machines from the cellar and garret, and placed them in show windows with seductively low prices affixed to them. Still, nobody buys them, and it is safe to say that nobody will, so long as the cause which originally prevented the velocipede from attaining popularity among us still remains.

The failure of the velocipede was not due, as many suppose, to any defect in me machine. It could easily be managed in streets not excessively crowded with vehicles, and though some goad we effort was required to set it in motion, it could be with comparatively little exertion. Of course, more strength was needed to make a single revolution of the driving wheel than is exerted by pedestrians in making a single step, but since one turn of the driving wheel propelled the velocipede nearly three yards, while the pedestrian gained but about 20 inches in a single step, it is probable that the rider of the velocipede traveled over a given distance with less effort than the pedestrian.

The real cause of the failure of the velocipede was the tyranny of the small boy. This shameless and exasperating mouthpiece of crude and unreasoning public opinion, crushed out the velocipede and drove its patrons into the obscurity of back yards and private piazzas. Whenever a man presented himself on the street, mounted upon his bicycle, the small boy, multiplying himself in the appalling manner which is his habit on occasions when his presence is particularly undesirable, surrounded him like a poisonous cloud. Shut out from the sight of his fellow men by the crowding and clamorous foe, the velocipede rider was exposed, unaided, to the jeers and insulting comments of his tormentors. His style of riding was ridiculed; his dress, and especially his boots, were openly disparaged, and contemptuous were loudly laid upon his probable mental condition. The bravest rider qualled before this ordeal. No man would consent to ride even the finest Arabian horse in existence were he to be surrounded with hundreds of shrill-voiced enemies, shouting, He can’t ride!” “Hi! Look at his boots once!” and betting peanuts in support of the proposition, “He’s afraid of falling; see how pale he is.” Much less would any man brave such a trial in behalf of the possible pleasures of bicycle riding. The small boy banished the bicycle so thoroughly that no one now dares even to mention the machine that called forth such universal juvenile reprobation. It is only by force of numbers that the small boy can be overcome. Had the riders of bicycles gone forth in companies of fifty or a hundred, they would have mutually encouraged one another, and thus defied the sneers of the small boy until the velocipede had lost for him its novelty, and consequently its interest. Had this plan been adopted, we should now find the bicycle a general favorite, and we should look to it as a possible means of temporarily supplying the dearth of ordinary means of convenience.

James Starley, the Father of the Bicycle.

April 21, 1830 – June 17, 1881

Pall Mall Gazette (London), June 23, 1881
An abridged version of this article appeared in Chicago’s Inter Ocean on July 7, 1881

A Modern Inventor.
A very remarkable career has just closed. Mr. James Starley, the inventor of the modern bicycle and tricycle, has this week been laid in his last resting-place in the Coventry cemetery, His career, which has bean cut short at a comparatively early age, was a striking illustration of the strength with which inborn talents assert themselves. Born about fifty years ago in the village of Albourne, Sussex, the son of a poor farmer, he received but little education, and at the age of nine was put to agricultural labour.

In 1846 or 1847, while still a lad, he left home to seek his fortune in London, and, after some changes and vicissitudes, he finally settled in Lewisham, Kent, where he married. For some years he followed the occupation of gardener, and in that capacity was employed by the late Mr. Penn, the proprietor of large machine works at Greenwich. He probably found his way into Mr. Penn’s factory, if he did not gain occupation there, for it was at this time that his mechanical genius first showed itself by the invention of an adjustable candlestick, the one stringed window-blind, and the magic bassinette, which will probably be remembered by anxious mothers of that date as warranted (per advertisements of the period) to soothe and lull the most tiresome of infants.

About 1855 he found congenial occupation in improving the Newton-Wilson sewing machine, and in a few years afterwards he settled in Coventry, bringing with him a newly invented machine of the same description called “The European.” The collapse of the Coventry ribbon trade in 1860 and the social distress by which it was accompanied led to the introduction of new industries into the city. Among the earliest of these was the Coventry Machinists’ Company, of which Mr Starley was appointed foreman.

His active mind was ever bent on inventions and improvements on inventions, and during this period he produced many varieties of sewing machines, some of which are in the market under names which he himself could not have recognized. Twelve years ago he began a study which was to prove a turning-point in his life, and which constitutes his chief title to remembrance.

A French bicycle was brought under the notice of the Coventry Machinists’ Company, who took up the manufacture of it for a Paris firm. The “bone-shaker” is a machine which the rider of to-day would more than disdain; it bears the same relation to the modern bicycle as a carthorse does to the winner of the Derby. But the rude contrivance contained an idea which fell upon a fruitful soil. Mr. Starley first improved it, and then he improved it out of existence, by inventing a machine of an entirely novel construction.

He first gave to the world the “spider wheel,” which has wrought a complete revolution in the wheel world, and which marks the commencement of the present era of ‘cycles. The first of the new style of machines was “the spring and step machines, or the Coventry model.” The superiority of this machine was self-evident, the old coach-like wooden wheels being superseded by wire spokes and shaped rim and india-rubber tyres, a curved spring, and a small hind wheel near to the driving wheel.

The Ariel (1870), invented and patented by James Starley and the diamond-framed Safety bicycle (1884) by his nephew John Kemp Starley. The high-wheel bicycle was nicknamed the “Penny-farthing,” because the ratios of the wheel size were comparable to that of British coins. After the “Safety” style was introduced, Penny-farthing was referred to as the “Ordinary.”

The “Ariel,” a light and graceful machine that fully justified its name, afterwards followed, and embodied the important improvement of pivot-centre steering. Starley’s next triumphs were the “Europa” sewing machine and the “Tangent” bicycle, by which greater strength was obtained in the wheel. Regarding the bicycle as practically perfected, he now began the study of the tricycle, the machines of this name hitherto in use not being particularly remarkable for lightness or beauty. The “Coventry” tricycle was the first fruit of this application; in due time came the “Salvo-Quadri-cycle,” which Mr. Starley regarded as his magnum opus. He improved the ” Salvo,” till he considered it as nearly perfect, and the principle of its construction is regarded by experienced judges as not likely to be superseded.

Early this year, the Queen having ordered one of these machines for the Princesses, it was taken to Osborne by the inventor himself. At this time he was suffering from a hopeless disease, although the malady had not developed so as greatly to impair his power, or at least his desire to work,

Mr. Starley patented a number of his inventions; but he had little commercial keenness, and, speaking broadly, his inventive genius was freely given to the world. He has left behind him no fortune, though latterly he was feeling his way to a competency. Mr. Starley was a man of great simplicity of character, free from every taint of self-assertion or arrogance.

Chicago Tribune, January 9, 1879
Reprinted from the Boston Advertiser

THE WINGED HEEL
Some Interesting Facts and Reflections Relating to Bicycle Navigation.
Mounted on his fifty-two inch wheel, with the wind humming in the spokes, and the mile-stones fitting behind him, the bicyclist appropriates the esthetic meaning ot the “winged heel” with which the ancients endowed the messenger of the gods. The prophetic myth of the wise and athletic Greeks has become a modern reality. To get over the ground and through the water in the quickest manner is the goal for which ardent spirits in all ages have put forth their best endeavors. The bicycle ranks among those gifts of science to man, by which he is enabled to supplement his own puny powers with the exhaustless forces around him. He sits in the saddle, and all Nature is but a four-footed beast to do his bidding. Why should he go a-foot, when he can ride a mustang of steel, who knows his rider and never needs a lasso?

This is no boy’s plaything. There are plenty of men, and their numbers are increasing, who prefer it on some accounts to a horse or a yacht. It is the only way by which you can run and not be weary, and walk and not faint. Bicycling is walking with scientific economy of expended energy. It is an extension of the person, an enlargement of the bodily functions in the direction of locomotion. It seems difficult to the uninitiated to keep one’s balance on a vertical wheel, but the mechanical principle, or knack of the thing, is as easily acquired as skating, and much easier than to balance a load on the head. The erect posture of the human frame, sustaining and maintaining a lengthened column of bones on the foot, is a mechanical marvel, but it comes by practice. The exhilaration of bicycling must be felt to be appreciated. With the wind singing in your ears, and the mind as well as body in a higher plane, there is an ecstasy of triumph over inertia, gravitation, and the other lazy ties that bind us. You are traveling! not being traveled.

You look upon horse machines with contempt, and even your old acquaintance, the pedestrian, with pity. The saddle, firm as a pillar, bears up your 170 pounds dead weight, which in waking you have to raise up and lower with every step. Your body is at rest; the legs are in motion, and your walking stroke geared up to a wheel thirteen feet in circumference, shod with rubber. You sit and glide with scarcely a perceptible jar, but the towns and villages dwindle as you pass through them. The birds that cleave the air have a like motion with yourself. By moonlight on a bard road the enjoyment of yourself as a centaur is intense. To see a close-knit, sun-browned fellow in fitting costume, shouting down a long hill with perfect composure, dispensing with hands, or feet, or both, at a pace exceeding that of a race-horse, is fearful, but it is pretty. Experts go up hill or down a long hill with acquired ease, and in single rute for miles at the sides of country roads; but the better the road the better the ride, which is equally true of all other vehicles. All modes of transit along the highways of travel, ox-power, horse-power, steam-power, electric, or any other motor, pedestrianism and pedalism, have each their hour and right of way for the time being, according to law.

Though there are difficulties to be overcome, we claim that any one of ordinary patience and pluck can learn to ride a bicycle satisfactorily. The feat is somewhat gyroscopic and less than it looks to be. Once learned, it is an elegant and healthful accomplishment, worth all the time and money it costs. “Good-by sick list! is the hail of a good bicyclist as he leaps into the saddle fora ten-or twenty-mile run. The bicycle is not intended to be a “common carrier,” but it will carry a man with some light baggage and give him the equivalent of a pair of legs ten feet long. There is no sensation in the saddle of being balanced on a knife-edge. This feeling is an element of danger in itself, and must be overcome. As to safety in general, the bicycle being a machine is safer than a horse, for the latter has a will of his own to be consulted and controlled. Bicycling is an institution, having already developed the elements of permanency. It takes with the “sana mens in corpore sano,” and none but those who have outlived or forgotten their youth will call it in question. The mechanical principles are good, as far as they go, and each new improvement (there is plenty of room yet) gives it a firmer hold with the athletic. Every boy in the coming generation should be trained to it, commencing with the velocipede at an early age. Get a good machine by all means; and, if you can afford it, indulge in the luxury of a first-class article; one that you can ride with the loose rein of confidence. throwing your entire muscle into a level spurt or a step ascent, with no nervous apprehension of a badly-made screw, or a loose rubber, or subsequent repairs. The preference given to a “hand-sewed” shoe applies to bicycles, especially while important portions require to be forged. Each part should be perfectly fitted to the other, and to no other, the grouping of the whole constituting a precious individuality which is not to be found in “books.” Clothespins can be turned out by the thousand, but telescopes, electric clockwork, and bicycles are the product of a high range of art. Indeed, the bicycle may be considerable as the outcrop of the age, the necessity for rapid transit having given birth to the invention. With full faith in the progress of thugs, we look beyond this machine of to-day, and see private carriages to and fro on our best roads, impelled by small petroleum engines of light horse-power. This is a favorite subject with some of our advanced mechanicians, and by them considered so feasible as to be almost a reality. When the first machine comes along, and it will come in due time, it will be another winged heel. We give it in advance a hearty welcome.

The Daily Telegraph, July 18, 1880

Editorial.
There is a violent prejudice against the bicycle. It is regarded by some as a nuisance, by others as the “Devil’s own invention,” and by all as a horrible innovation.

We take issue with this public sentiment, and assert without fear of successful contradiction, that the bicycle is an incubator of good morals and has hatched out better results than can be attributed to an equal amount of buggy-riding. No scandals are connected with tye bicycle, no suspicions attend its midnight uses. It has no cover to it like a top buggy, and no one presumes to charge the driver with taking a passenger on board surreptitiously. The bicyclist has all he can attend to without taking toll under covered bridges. Girls generally, are down on “the pesky thing.” It makes them hopping mad mad to foot it alone to school as the big boys glide gracefully by on two wheels. If this custom obtains they will certainly insist upon a dress reform that will enable them, if not outstrip, to at least catch up with the bicycle chaps.

No temperance advocate should denounce this ostracized vehicle. It is better than a Murphy movement. As a conveyance it will not tolerate mixed drinks. In former times the old family nag could be relied upon to tote a fellow home—no matter how much so—ever he might be elated, not so with the incorrigible bicycle. It wous just flop him in the mud, and no amount of tall kicking it in the side would compel it to stir. So all topers as well as girls, are down on bicycles. But if you would unearth its greatest enemy, look uop an average hackman. They have no confidence in brain power. They maintain that a vehicle drawn by horses is safer than a conveyance propelled by a man. They preach the doctrine to the City Council, who, like themselves, have great faith in horse sense. To manifest their faith vy their works, they prohibited the use of vehicle on Michigan avenue and the boulevards. These smooth ways are reserved for gouty men in cushioned carriages. Here is a fit occasion for a riot—wheelbarrows, go-carts, street cars and locomotives. have guaranteed rights not awarded to the bicycle. But fear not; there will be no bloodshed. The wheel-behind-the-wheel will prove a reformer. It will foster a race of strong men who will not always be crowded in the gutters and compelled to travel on back streets. Being a new thing, the bicycle must have its day of ridicule, of persecution, and of martyrs. When the world slow, the iron horse bade the people mount. They did. Kings loitered with their leveried coachmen and were left. So again, a thing of health, of economy, of grace, and of speed glides by the gout-producing conveyance of old paralytic aristocracy. He shakes with anger his crutch as the receding for, and demands of his dazed jockey;: “What is that?” The tardy reply is: “It is young Enterprise on a bicycle.”

The Bicycling World, December 10, 1880

Chicago Notes.
The glorious months of autumn, with its hard, smooth roads and bracing atmosphere, are drawing to a close, and with them ends the first fiscal year of organized bicycling in Chicago. Perhaps our experience may be of some interest to our brethren of the wheel, and I will briefly review what we have done to advance the useful and noble sport in this city.

In October, 1879, we gathered together a band of a little over a half-dozen riders, all enthusiastic devotees of the steel horse, and entered into a union for mutual aid, comfort, and protection. This was made necessary on account of the hostile spirit which was being displayed toward the bicycle, and rendered an organized effort on our part necessary to protect our own interests. When the first bicycle was introduced in Chicago, over two years ago, it was regarded with much curiosity by everybody, but its numbers seemed to increase very slowly. One year more found about half a dozen of the machines in constant use about the city, and everybody’s attention was directed toward them with considerable interest. As is usual with every shining mark, it began to be assailed by those whose interests were thought to be in some manner endangered, and the first check placed upon our freedom was a refusal of admittance to Lincoln Park. This was caused by a wooden machine, in the hands of a reckless boy, scaring a horse. By this time a great many of the wooden machines were abroad in the streets, ” raising Cain ” generally ; and, although our skirts .were clear of any charge of scaring animals and running down baby-carriages and women, still, like Old Dog ‘ Tray, we were in bad company,— at least the people who did not know the difference between the two classed us as one, and we had to share the odium. The south parks and magnificent boulevards were next wrested from us, and we began now to feel that something serious was in store for us. This was rapidly followed in December by an effort on the part of the livery- stable keepers of the city to prevail upon the council to pass an ordinance prohibiting our use of the streets. The matter was referred to the city attorney, and he gave it as his opinion that this was in effect unconstitutional, and therefore we escaped this dire calamity. In order to ascertain just what our rights were in this world, and to know whether we really were intruders, seeing that everybody called us such, we had recourse to a legal opinion in regard to the matter, and were much cheered at the decision of one of our most eminent law firms to the effect that we had a right to the parkways and boulevards, highways and streets, just the same as other vehicles, and that our actions and conduct upon the road were subject to the same laws as governed the motions of carriages. This opinion was published in the World of 24 July Upon this platform we proceeded to act and to regain our lost ground in the parks, but without success. We were on the point of getting a favorable decision from the board, when a small wooden tricycle on the sidewalk of the grand boulevard frightened the horse of a lady, and that was the last of us. An order was immediately drawn up even more stringent than before, forbidding us to even show our shadow upon the pavement. As some of us lived upon the drives, it behooved us to sneak up a side street and alley, and get our machines into the house in the best vjay possible under the circumstances. Still our numbers increased. In the spring we had a dozen members or more, with an occasional “unattached.” The grand six days’ tournament participated in by Keen, Terront, Cann, and Stanton, in the fall, had sowed the seed; and while, for a time, it fell on barren ground, and proved a financial disaster to the sowers, yet its effect was not lost. It set people to thinking, and when they think they generally investigate, and if they see a good thing they usually buy. But they were slow to see a good thing, considering the attitude of the city government, and the then horrible condition of most of our streets. In the latter respect we have improved wonderfully this summer. In fact, the western division of the city has been almost generally rejuvenated, and broad avenues of smooth cedar block and glistening macadam are springing into line with great rapidity. A grand boulevard system of thirty-five miles surrounding the city only lacks a short stretch of being completed, and when that is done Jericho will be outdone in being encompassed about. The spring and summer, with their jolly social runs, found us prospering and increasing. Fourth of July was celebrated with a grand run from Milwaukee through the beautiful hills and lakes of Waukesha County, lasting three days, in which we were joined by representatives from other cities, and communication and exchange of views with our neighbors served to infuse new enthusiasm into our ranks. Late in the summer another club, the Ariel Bi. C. was organized, with a dozen members, which is constantly receiving additions, and with our membership of nearly twenty, besides the numerous “unattached,” we were beginning to assume quite an importance. The Park Commissioners have granted us permission to ride upon the boulevards whenever -we desire to have a ” club run,” and we have generally presumed upon this privilege to ride thereon at all hours after sunset. I trust the future is not far when everything will be again open to us.

Last week we celebrated our final run of the season. Our neighbors were called in to help us have a good time ; and although the weather proved somewhat unfavorable, with high wind and gusts of snow, still the hard, calendered roads, and a permission to run the boulevards, were irresistible to a goodly few, a round “baker’s dozen,” and off we started for South Chicago before the smacking breeze. As we always do, we had a glorious good time, and the afternoon’s run of twenty-eight miles over perfection itself in the way of bottom was voted, as usual, ” the best and most enjoyable one yet.”

For this winter’s sport we have secured the Exposition Building, with a magnificent gallery of about four laps to the mile, and we propose to do noble work in the way of speed before spring. The captain of our club has already reduced time down to a mile in 2.55 on a common country race-course, with a machine two sizes too small, and with a bicycling experience of only six months. The world will yet hear of us!—Steno, Chicago, November 20, 1880

The Bicycling World, May 13, 1881

Although Boston may be said to be the central point of the interest in bicycle riding, as it is the birthplace of the sport in this country, and contains more riders than any other city, it has by no means a monopoly; and before many years it will doubtless find itself at the periphery instead of on the hub of the wheel, so rapidly does the bicycle push to the front in the Western cities. Already a club in Milwaukee claims the largest club representation in the League, and Chicago, Detroit, and other more easterly cities are strong competitors in the friendly rivalry.

Chicago Tribune, September 7, 1884

Within the last few years the bicycle has come into prominence as a means of locomotion. It has not been utilized for business purposes, at least in the United States, and is ridden here more for health or pleasure. In England the “bike” is much used for business purposes, and it is said that in some parts of the Kingdom families have sold their horses and carriages and now go to church, to market, to the bank, etc., upon the horse that eats no oats and is not subject to glanders. It is not so long ago when the passage of a bicycle along a public street would cause people to turn about and gaze after it, when a horse at sight of the bicycle and rider would stand upon its hind legs and paw the air, or split the atmosphere in a vain attempt to leave behind the memory of that frightful apparition. But now, when the swift, noiseless wheel hums by the gaze of languid curiosity is directed to the bicyclist more to learn whether his horse are green, red, or striped than anything else. The staid, old carriage-horse merely twitches one ear and winks an eye, as if to say:

You can go faster than I can, but your bones will never be fit for oleomargarine.

The late idler in the park in paths sacred to pedestrians will have the breadth taken away by the flash of nickel-plated wheels controlled by a young man in short clothes, and making no more noise than the passage of a bat or a night-hawk. Should you drive out on the boulevards never so far you will find the bicyclist. He enjoys the fun of passing your crack trotter; he saucily dodges in and out on the crowd of equipages. On country roads you will find him; his presence is discovered in the grass-grown lane. A year or two ago, when the bicycle was new, it was as much as the rider’s life was worth to venture upon the rural roads. The matron driving old Dobbin to the market town would be terrified nearly unto death at the sudden apparition of “one of them velocipede fellers.” As he approached and Dobbin’s ears pointed forward she would stop and begin to pull on the reins. The docile old horse would begin to back, in obedience bred, and this would be a fresh source of terror to the worthy matron of the wagon. Often-times an accident would be averted only by the bicyclist springing from his vehicle and catching the old horse by the bridle. His reward would be then tart remark, that if he had “only stood still” there would have been no harm done. Alas, poor bicycle! Unlike the horse, its best hold is not in standing still. It is in best control when in the most rapid motion.

The Bad Small Boy.
But the bicycle is likely to fall into unworthy hands. The half-grown boy in the quiet side-street, where the policeman comes only upon his tri-weekly visit to his “cold-chicken” girl, has everything his own sweet way. He usurps the sidewalk, and, not content with driving off the baby-wagons, bumps into the pedestrian. The earth is his, and the fullness thereof, and as long as the “pa” lives on the street the boy considers that he has a warranty deed upon the sidewalk for two blocks each way. The bitterest thing ever said against the bicycle was several years ago, when a paragrapher stated that bicycles had no rights upon the street; and when a young man’s “pa” was rich enough to buy him a bicycle the old man should throw in a forty-acre lot for him to ride in.

The use of the bicycle keeps pace with the rapid increase of the wealthy of the community. A first-class machine of the kind costs between $75 and $150. Dry-goods clerks on a salary of $12 per week with a family to support don’t use them. The possession of a bicycle is as much an indication of well-to-doness as the livery upon the coachman.

Its Rights Under the Law.
As the use of the bicycle is becoming so common the natural inquiry is as to the law and the rights of the bicyclists on roads, streets, and other highways. In Chicago there are no restrictions upon its use. The streets, boulevards, and parks are open to the use of bicyclists. There is an ordinance prohibiting the riding of bicycles, etc., upon sidewalks, but it is not and never has been enforced. The smooth roads, boulevards, and streets of this city and vicinity have given it the name of the “bicyclists’ paradise.” Quite against the law the gentleman with short pants rides upon the footpaths of the parks, and quite against the law he frightens the nursemaids and toddling babies.

The question now in a great many minds is, Has the bicycle a right to part of the road as against other vehicles? A correspondent from Geneva, Ill., sends the following extract from the statutes, which he thinks ought to settle the question:

SEC.68.

SEC. 77. Whenever any persons traveling with any carriage whatsoever shall meet on any turnpike, road, bridge, or highway in the State, the persons so meeting shall seasonably turn their carriages to the right of the beaten track so as to permit each carriage or vehicle to pass without interruption or interference, under penalty of $5 for each offense, to be recovered by the party aggrieved. Provided, This act shall not be construed to apply to a case where it is impracticable from the nature of the ground for the driver of the carriage or vehicle to turn to the right of the beaten track.

“Secretary Sherman,” says this corespondent, “under advice from the Law Department at Washington, June 30, 1877, decided that the bicycle was a ‘carriage” and dutiable as such.”

A Friend in the Pulpit.
This at once opens a great field of inquiry. Is a bicycle a vehicle? A reporter for The Tribune yesterday called upon a man well known as a clergyman, and as an owner and rider of a bicycle, for an answer to this question.

“Yes, sir; I am a bicyclist,” he responded to the first question.

“Do you consider your bicycle a vehicle?”

“I do,” he replied. “Though I have no room under the seat for lunch baskets, and there is no chance for a dispute as to who shall ride backwards, I consider it a vehicle.”

“Do you often take long rides?”

“Oh, yes; I often step over to Racine before breakfast, and stop to Janesville for lunch, bringing up at Western avenue in time for a 5 o’clock dinner.”

“Are the roads always good?”

“There is one peculiarity about the Illinois prairie road in connection to with a bicycle. The either carries you or you carry the bicycle.”

“When you meet a team to which side do you turn?”

“If the man looks very mad I generally get off and wait until he passes by.”

“Don’t you know there is a law compelling every ‘vehicle’ to turn to the right upon meeting a team?”

“I have heard so, but never yet knew a team to give an inch to a bicycle rider.”

Has the Rights of a Vehicle.
Mr. J. O. Blake of the John Wilkinson Company is the head centre of the bicycle riders of the city. To him went the reporter.

“Bicycles coming into this country,” said Mr. Blake, “are classed as pleasure vehicles.”

“How about a share of the road?”

“Though we have never asked for it, we are entitled to half the road in meeting teams. This principle has been established in frequent cases in the East. As classified in customs duties bicycles are ‘vehicles,’ and come under law as such.”

“How about the local laws on the subject?”

“In a test case in Springfield, Mass., the other day the city law was declared null, because it conflicted with the statute laws. It will win every time a case is brought.”

“Do the truckmen and many teamsters take kindly to this law or decision.”

“No, they are inclined to be a little saucy in every instance. In Boston two or three examples have been made at them, and now they are passably civil. The courts uphold the bicyclist every time on that point. Why should people have such a prejudice against the bicycle? According to the statistics there has thus far been one fatal accident occasioned by a bicycle in frightening horses or throwing riders. Can you name any other vehicle of which the same can be said? Even in England, where thousands are used, no accidents have occurred, though they are in the streets all the time. The fatal accident spoken of was a collision with a carriage, where, the rider was thrown under the horses’ feet.”

Has Come to Stay.
“How many riders are there in the city?”

“Between 600 and 700 who own fine bicycles.”

“You have many privileges in Chicago as bicyclists?”

“We hawve full permission to ride on all streets, boulevards, and in all the parks, but not on the sidewalks, and if the law was strictly enforced as to sidewalks there would be no complaint. The whole trouble arises from boys who get a bicycle or velocipede and rise on the sidewalks or in paths of the parks.”

“Is the pastime growing?”

“Yes, beyond all account. Here is a new club just formed on the North Side which includes two clergymen, three attorneys, one general manager of a railway, two prominent physicians, and the rest, twenty-six in all, merchants of wealth and standing. Yes, there are in this club three married women tricyclists and one unmarried, al of the higher circles, who ride for health and pleasure. You have no idea how popular this amusement is becoming; but it has come to stay.”

“A Game For Byes Sorr!”
Dennis Maguire, who drives a heavy two-horse goods truck for a South Water street wholesale grocery house, was interviewed. He said:

“Is it give the road to them fly-away divils in their short pants? Sure Oi’ll nivir do it, Let them git out uv my way or Oi’ll droive over them! Be the bomes of Fayther John but it would be the great fun to see them run into me truck. They’d be wilcome to all the satisfaction they got.”

“Dennis,” asked the repoorter, “do you consider the bicycle a vehicle?

“Divil aq bit ov a vayhacle.”

“What is it then?”

“A game for boys, sorr.”

“Would you not turn out and give them half the road?”

“Whin Oi do, ye’ll foind me last sickness coning on, sorr.”

The information gathered seems to establish the fact that the laws on the subject are just a trifle hazy. The status and rank of the “swift, noiseless sheel” should be fixed beyond a doubt.

The Wheel and Cycling Trade Review, May 4, 1888, and July 6, 1888

Starley’s “high wheeler” started the bicycle boom in America. It was nicknamed the “Penny Farthing” near the end of its popularity and then called the “Ordinary” after the Safety bicycle was introduced.

Chicago Tribune, May 17, 1896

There is a new division of mankind. It is no longer the man who buys his winter coal at wholesale in the summer and the man who buys is by the load when the bin is empty. The boundary line between the tailor-made man and the ready-made man is obsolete. There are no longer carriage folk and street car people. The girl with and without the chaperon speak as they pass by.

All the old kings are dead. Long live the king!

His name is King Bicycle and great is his power of the land.

All the world is divided into two parts—the part which rides a bicycle and the part which doesn’t.

In the fall of 1888 the solid-tired “bone-shaker” safety bicycle made its appearance. It was regarded as a curiosity. But it was a safety.

Today there are 4,000,000 riders of safeties in the United States, whose wheels cost them $300,000,000. And more wheels are coming at the rate of 1,000,000 a year.

In Chicago alone there are 200,000 riders, whose wheels cost them $15,000,000. A total of over $30,000,000 is invested here in cycling in one way or another.

Now, whether you are a rider, or think you will get a wheel someday, or entirely and condemn the bicycle, these astonishing facts and figures must interest you as a loyal American and a thinking person. For these facts mean much—fortunes invested in the manufacture of wheels, bicycle clothing, and sundries; hundreds of millions of dollars diverted from the usual channels of trade; armies of men employed at a new trade and in new lines of business; fortunes made by those in line with the craze; depression in trades and businesses out of the line; a revolution in our habits of life, and consequent changes affecting the mental, moral, and physical condotion of the people of the United States.

Some of these facts and conditions, and problems are herewith presented by The Tribune for its readers.

Chicago Tribune, May 17, 1896

Two hundred thousand wheels in use in Chicago!

What an immense aggregation of iron, rubber, leather, and wood this is few persons stop to consider, and the numbers which a little figuring gives are almost beyond belief. The combined weight which this number will support is 150,000 tons, or several times the weight of the Masonic Temple. The combined weight of the wheels themselves is 2,500 tons, or nearly the weight of the United States steel-armored man-of-war Boston. If all the tubing used in these wheels was put in a straight line it would extend from here to New York. Furthermore, if all the material used in these wheels was to be combined in one large wheel it would require the entire United States to make a suitable bike path for it to run on.

It is needless to say the public has paid out an extraordinary amount of money to obtain and use these 200,000 wheels. At an average cost of $75 apiece, the sum invested in wheels alone by the people of Chicago is $15,000,000. When we come to consider the factories, repair shops, and retail establishments; the clothes, sundries, and appliances owned by the riders; the bicycle club-houses and property; the racing tracks and racing paraphernalia, the total money invested by Chicago in the bicycle craze amounts up close to the tremendous total of $33,000,000.

By this sum it is not intended to say that $33,000,000 could be realized on cycling property. That is far from the case. Just as the average cost of each wj=heel was about $75, the present average value is about $50, making the total marketable worth of the cycles in Chicago about $10,000,000. Following up this estimate it is safe to say the market value of all wheel goods owned in Chicago is about $25,000,000.

Chicago the Cycling Center.
When it comes to an estimate of wheels and riders, bicycle makers and bicycle investors, the fact sticks out with unsuspected prominence that Chicago is the bicycle center of the United States. On this account, as startling as are the figures for the whole country, the estimates for Chicago are even more remarkable and naturally of more local interest.

Last year a couple of trade journalists made an exhaustive estimate of the number of bicycle riders in the City of Chicago. It was an impossible task to be exact, and will probably never be accurately accomplished until its is made a part of taking the census. The figures obtained, however, pointed to a total of 150,000 wheelmen in the city. Figuring on a conservative estimate of a one-third increase this year, which the retail dealers say is more than justified by the amount of their sales, this would put the total number of bicycle riders in Chicago at 200,000.

This estimate, made by a careful system of observation and computation, is astonishingly near those made by other means. The leading manufacturers, retail dealers, and cycling club members all have means of forming an expert opinion, and their guesses ran from 100,000 to 300,000. It is thought by some of the delegates to the Associated Cycling clubs thaqt twenty men ride wheels for everyone belonging to a club. As about 100,000 members are enrolled in the Associated Cycling clubs this still keeps the estimate at 200,000.

To find what per cent of the 200,000 riders in the city is women and children is another task which defies accuracy. Counts made of the number of women and men riders passing a given point in a given time show a wide variation according to hour and locality. On Michigan avenue during the hours when people are going to and from business the average of women is about one in fifty. Take the same place in the evening or on a Sunday afternoon and the per cent runs as high as one in three. From a series of observations and from the opinions of dealers the proportion of women riders in the city has been settled upon at 20 per cent of the whole number of bicyclists.This would give 40,000 women riding wheels.

A like computation puts the number of children at 1 per cent, or 2,000.

Leads in Cycle Manufacturing.
Not alone as a wheel-riding town is Chicago at the front in the whole of the United States, as a wheel-manufacturing center it also easily leads all American cities. The principal makers of bicycles here, in fact, declare Chicago’s prominence is more marked in the production than in the consumption of wheels. Yet this city builds this year barely 50,000 more bicycles than are now in use by its inhabitants.

Twenty-five wheel factories, each producing at least 1,000 bicycles this year, are located in Chicago. Their combined output is close to 250,000 wheels, or one-fourth of the entire probable output in the United States this season.

Among the Chicago concerns is the largest single manufactory of wheels in the world. Its output is variously rated at from 40,000 to 60,000 finished machines. Close behind it comes another Chicago concern, making 30,000 wheels. Tied for third place are two other factories each building 20,000.

Referee & Cycle Trade Journal, May 14, 1896

Chicago Tribune, April 12, 1896

BICYCLES AND JACKSON STREET
Boodle Aldermen are seeking to sell to a street railroad corporation the only free east-and-west street left which traverses the business district and which can be used for bicycle and social travel by residents of the West and South Divisions or by other Chicagoans. How much boodlers are to get for their corrupt votes is not publicly known. Some of thom may receive as much as two or three thousand dollars. The cheaper ones may have sold their votes and their constituents for ten to twelve hundred apiece.

But the value to the people of what these corrupt rascals propose to give away to a grasping corporation is inestimable. It can hardly be measured by millions. When Chicagoans once come to understand what the effect would be of the passage of the “Central Electrie” Jackson street ordinance over a veto of Mayor Swift they will mark for political death every man who may have had anything to do with it.

One street after another in the heart of the city has been sold to the railroad companies. At present the only street connecting the South and West Side Park systems which can be used for social travel is Jackson street. There the tens of thousands of bicyclists can get along safely and comfortably. As long as that street and its wide, splendid bridge remain free and unobstructed the boys and the young men and women who take pleasure in a most healthful and enjoyable form of exercise will have perfect facilities for getting from one park of the great system and city to another.

The bicyclist starting from Garfield or Douglas Park can follow the boulevard streets of the West Side eastward. He can cross the South Branch at the fine Jackson street bridge, and go on, unobstructed by trains of street cars, to Michigan boulevard. There he can turn northward to the Public Library or southward to the Art Institute or Auditorium.

Continuing south along the smooth Michgan boulevard he can reach the South Parks. Then turning eastward to the lake and Jackson Park, westward on the Hyde Park and Lake boulevard, which forms the outside connection of the two park systems, he can complete the grand circuit back to Garfield orto Humboldt Park and return to his starting point. And this grand exercise for tens of thousands of young people!

Take away Jackson street, from Michigan to Canal, including the bridge, and he cannot swing around the grand circle.

Take away Jackson street, from Canal to Michigan, and one side of the loop is gone.

It will not be long before Michigan avenue and the Lake Shore drive to Lincoln Park are connected, so that the wheelmen can go with ease over smooth roads from Evanston to Lincoln Park, thence to the Field Columbian Museum.

But if Jackson street from Canal to Michigan boulevard is sold by the boodle Aldermen to the “Central Electric” the North-Siders must ride to Humboldt Park on a Lake View cross street in visiting West Side parks and then return the way they went. Will any of the North Side Aldermen vote to cut off this connection for the bicyclers via Jackson street and the West Side parks and boulevards?

With Jackson street kept preserved for social and family vehicle use there will be two grand loops for the tens of thousands of wheelmen of all parts of the great city, with one side of each extending through the heart of Chicago.

With Jackson street bartered away for bribes the bicyclists can see where they will be. The immense West Division will be pretty much cut off from the others.

The numberof wheelmen in this city must already exceed 100.000. There are multitudes of thousands of them who are voters now and are able to strike a blow at the at the treacherous boodlers who have sold out the people s social rights in this city. There are many tens of thousands more who are not voters yet, but who wlil soon be. There Is not a ward in this city which has not bicyclist voters enough to destroy any Alderman who sells out the rights of the bicyclers in this vital connecting street.

Chicago Tribune, April 2, 1897

Harrison a Long-Time Wheelman.
Candidate Harrison has long been a bicycle rider. He rode a great deal last year. Altogether he made over 4,400 miles and covered twelve centuries. In fact, he is almost as enthusiastic a cyclist as his brother, William Preston Harrison, who only left traveling in Europe on a wheel to come home and take part in the political campaign. Mr. Harrison wears the regulation suit. He donned it especially when he had his picture taken last week for the occasion.

Chicago Chronicle, April 18, 1897

There are more than 1,500 idle blacksmiths and horseshoers in Chicago who attribute their lack of profitable work to the advent of the bicycle. That is the estimate given by the secretary of the Horseshoers’ union, and he has good opportunities of ascertaining whereof he affirms. Not only are these men out of work, but there is little prospect that they will obtain employment for a long time to come. For the most part they are good mechanics, expert in shoeing horses and in the manufacture and repairing of carriages of every description. They are sober and would be industrious if they had the chance. A majority have families dependent upon them for support—aged parents, younger brothers and sisters or wives and children. When they had learned their trade they fancied they were secure against poverty and that as long as health and strength remained they would be able to earn a comfortable living for themselves and their loved ones and lay by a small sum yearly for use in the days when age or infirmity should overtake them. But now, through no fault of their own, they are threatened with want and are compelled to idle away their time as best they can, while their small savings are growing less day by day. They are as competent as ever and can shoe a refractory horse or make the necessary repairs upon a carriage or buggy as skillfully as ever before in their lives. But there are few horses to shoe nowadays and the vehicles that remain in use require less tinkering, for they are not used as much as formerly, and require fewer repairs.

Charged to the Bicycle.
The woes of these artisans are directly traceable to the use of the bicycle. Thousands of young men who in former days were wont to take their best girls on a buggy ride on Sundays, holidays or of a pleasant evening have abandoned the practice. Instead they take a spin over the boulevards mounted on their two-wheeled steeds, either tandem or in pairs. They save money by the change, for they have no livery bills to pay and reck not that the liveryman has been obliged to sell half his stock and seldom has a call for that which remains. Citizens generally who once kept a stable of from two to a dozen horses, with equipages of various sorts, now find that one or two will be sufficient for their needs, for the sons and daughters of the household, and frequently the fathers and mothers and the grandfathers and grandmothers as well, have taken to the wheel as a means of recreation and exercise.

There has not been much diminution in the work of the downtown horseshoeing and wagon repairing shops; scarcely any in the shops owned or controlled by the express and omnibus companies and the leading wholesale houses. A few of the retail merchants have utilized the bicycle for the delivery of small parcels to their customers, and have thus been enabled to dispense with some of their delivery wagons, but as yet the horse has not outlived his usefulness in their service. It is in the residence districts that the bicycle is most in evidence, has got in its most deadly work and has driven the neighboring blacksmith and horseshoer to the verge of bankruptcy and despair. Hyde Park, Englewood, Auburn Park and Woodlawn a score of blacksmith shops have been closed, while many others are kept open merely as a matter of form. The forges, however, cast a less ruddy and more spasmodic glow. than was their wont three or our years ago, and “the boss” himself has taken his place at the anvil. He has fewer journeymen to look after and less work to oversee than he once had, and is looking forward to the advent of the horseless carriage as an event that will complete his ruin.

A Story of Adversity.
A horseshoer in State street who employed more than a dozen men three years ago and had all the work they could do was found yesterday plying his hammer vigorously on an old horseshoe. He paused a moment, wiped the perspiration from his sooty brow and said in a tone of sadness:

“Yes, the bicycles have played the mischief with my business. I used to take in $250 to $300 a week. Now I’m in great luck if I reach $100. I’ve got to do a good deal of work myself in order to meet expenses, for although business has fallen off rents and taxes are the same or greater. I have been living in the hope that the bicycle craze would expend itself and that people would return to their senses. But it seems a hopeless case. Everybody has gone clear crazy over wheels. I really believe the majority have wheels in their heads.

“What do I think of the horseless carriage? Well, it hasn’t got here yet, and I don’t believe it’s coming. But if it should be a success I suppose I’ll have to take my medicine with the rest. It can’t make business much worse than it is. I’m looking into the new machines, and if they are ever generally introduced I predict that there will be lots of accidents—oceans of collisions and breakdowns, which will make work for me. I’d as soon mend a carriage broken by electricity as one smashed by a runaway horse. And I’m going to be up to all the wrinkles when the time comes, if it ever does reach us. But I’m not going to fight windmills; I’ve got enough to do now in fighting to keep pace with the bicycle fever. That’s the only thing worrying me at present. If the mania continues I’ll have to put out a sign ‘Bicycle Tires Inflated Here’ and use my bellows for a pump.”

Having a Hard Struggle.
Three out of the seven forges in a West Lake street blacksmith shop were “dead” when The Chronicle man stepped in at the door. The proprietor, a picture of Vulcan himself, stalwart and muscular, looked moody as he surveyed his surroundings.

“Yes,” he said, with a sigh, “business is dull, and the worst of it is the dull season has only begun. People had to have their horses and buggies when the snow was on the ground, but now that pleasant weather has come I suppose they’ll take to their wheels again. It takes a mighty good man to make expenses in this business nowadays. so many people have sold their rigs and taken to the wheel. No; we get very little bicycle repairing to do. That’s a separate trade, and there are others to do the work. A blacksmith isn’t a success at tinkering bicycles. It isn’t in his line.

“The greatest falling off in my business, he continued, “is in the family trade. Two years ago I had fifty families at least, with from one to three horses each to keep shod, and buggies to keep in repair. I have less than half that number now. All the rest have sold their rigs and invested in wheels. But I am no worse off than my neighbors except that my investments in my business are a little larger. horseless carriages? Well, I suppose they’ll be the next thing to help along the work of driving us out of business. The way things are going is enough to drive a fellow to drink. But I don’t intend to quit the business; I can’t, in fact, for I don’t knew any other, and am forced to struggle along as best I can. It won’t do any good to kick, and so I’ll have to take things as they come.”

Heavy Teaming Not Affected.
At the shops of the express companies, the omnibus lines, and the leading wholesale dealers the customary activity was apparent. The superintendent of one of the largest of these establishments responded in cheerful mood to the reporters inquiries.

“The bicycle mania hasn’t hurt us any as yet, and I don’t see how it can. The large houses must have teams, and heavy ones at that. You can’t use bicycles for teaming heavy goods. The strongest, and largest draught horses in the market are required. We are not fretting, either, about the horseless carriages. They won’t affect us even a little bit. I tell you there’s nothing like horseflesh. It’s both convenient and economical. You can’t supersede it, at least for teaming purposes, unless you have straight, smooth roads, unobstructed by car tracks. Of course, I may live to see the horseless carriage on the boulevards used for purposes of pleasure, but for business in the heart of the city the horse will hold his own.

“Are we busy? Well, I should say so—busier than ever. You see a set of shoes doesn’t last long on granite block pavements such as we have downtown. Our horses have to be shod twice as often as formerly. They need the strictest care, for they are no ordinary plugs. It means a considerable loss when one of our animals goes lame or breaks a leg because of defective shoeing. We employ only the most skillful shoers, and as long as they are sober and attend to business they are sure of a job. Bicycles may have hurt the trade in some classes of work, but they have had no effect here, and I don’t see how they can hurt us if every man, woman and child in the city should get a wheel”.

The keepers of livery tables and the cab drivers are the loudest in their complaints of ruin to their business caused by the bicycle. The demand for the conveyances they have for hire has fallen off from 50 to 75 per cent, and seems to be still decreasing. Boarding stable keepers are also complaining of a decrease in patronage, and they see no immediate prospect of an improvement. But the classes that have suffered the most are the blacksmith, the wheelwright and the carriage-maker and repairer. These have been compelled to curtail expenses by reducing the number of employes, while not a few have been forced out of business altogether.

Chicago Tribune, May 30, 1897

Woolen sweaters and red and green clocked stockings are no longer en regle in the big wholesale houses clustered around Adams and Franklin streets, and the salesmen and bookkeepers do not push their wheels between bales of prints and stacks of white goods. These establishments do not discourage the use of the wheel, but when it comes to appearing for work in short breeches the managers interpose an emphatic veto.

The new regime was not thoroughly established at Marshall Field & Co.”s until three young men were sent home to dress again a short time ago.

The bicycle craze has run the usual course in this district. At first the riders were few and the number of those who were willing to risk their lives and limbs in the downtown district was comparatively small. Their employers were disposed to be liberal, and the bikes soon began to find space in odd corners in offices, under stairways, and beside the boilers in the basement.

Inconvenience Increases.
The inconvenience was borne with until the golf craze followed and gave the wheelmen a new garment, which remodeled the old “clips” for the trousers antiquated. Sweaters followed as a matter of course when the riders became imbued with the spirit of the road and declined to allow themselves to be passed by anything except railroad trains without a struggle. White shirts and stiff collars did not look well after exercise of this character.

The Referee Trade Journal, April 1, 1897

Hints Effective in Some Cases.
When the evolution was completed and the salesmen began to arrive for duty clad from head to toe in road costume, hints began to drop that it did not look well for salesmen to wait on costumers dressed in an unusual manner.

“While we are in the bicycle business to a certain extent,” the merchants said, “we also handle dry goods, and do not think all the salesmen ought to advertise one department.”

These hints were effective with some of the wheeling employes, but only partially so with others.

As early as last summer the permissibility of sweaters and Scotch stockings became a question on Fifth avenue, Market and Franklin streets. Drastic measures were not resorted to, and after a time first knee breeches and then sweaters made their reappearance from time to time until cold weather.

At the beginning of this season the number of wheelmen was found to be nearly doubled and the interference with business occasioned by the accumulating wheels and abbreviated costumes was sensibly felt. More emphatic hints were dropped on the subject, followed later by warnings.

Three Clerks Sent Home.
“If you have on bike clothes again you will not be admitted to the house,” was a final warning directed by Joseph Girard, usher in Marshal Field & Co.’s place, to the more persistent offenders.

One day three young salesmen who have been leaving their wheels and “bike” clothes at a friendly “bike” stable tarried on the road longer than they thought and had no time to make the change. They determined to run the gantlet. One by one they passed Mr. Girard’s desk and they were sent back home. Since then long trousers and white shirts have had exclusive possession of the field.

Another edict was issued in this establishment four weeks ago. It forbids wheelmen from bringing their machines into the store. They had been allowed to store them where they could find space for them and were accustomed to roll them in and out the main entrance. Sometimes they were muddy and women came to grief on their account., especially at noon and at the closing hour. Now the cyclists must find storage elsewhere. A Quincy street restaurant has set the pace by giving free storage.

Rules at Other Stores.
Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. had a somewhat similar experience with cycling costumes. They never allowed wheels to be stored on the premises.

The John V. Farwell company has set apart a room in the basement, with an entrance on the alley, for the use of the wheelmen. They furnished it themselves and employ one of the porters to take care of the wheels. The man arrives half an hour before working hours and is on hand at noon until all the wheelmen are gone in the evening to check the vehicles in and out. At present none of the salesman in this house appears in bicycle costume, though some of those in the clerical departments who do not come in contact with customers and the general public perform their duties dressed for the road, especially on Saturday, and nothing is said about it

Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1899

FINALLY FORM BICYCLE TRUST.
New Corporation as Completed Includes Nine Chicago Firms and Has $30,000,000 Capital.
New York, Aug. 31.—[Special.]—The bicycle trust, which has been in process of formation for two years, was finally completed today by the election of the following officers and directors:

The other members of the Board of Directors which will consist of fifteen will be elected at a subsequent meeting.

The title of the new trust will be the American Bicycle Company.

Chicago Concerns Involved.
The concerns that have been purchased and have become part of the company include the following from Chicago:

Other Companies Purchased.
The other concerns that have been purchased are the following:

For the purchase of these various plants there will be issued $10,000,000 5 per cent twenty-year gold debenture bonds; $10,000,000 7 per cent preferred stock, and $20,000,000 common stock, leaving in the treasury ample means for the purchase of such additional plants as may be desirable and for the extension of the business, especially in foreign countries.

The manufacturers have taken all the $10,000,000 preferred stock and the $20,000,000 common stock, and have subscribed for a substantial part of the debenture bonds.

Chicago Tribune April 10, 1900

DECLINE OF THE BICYCLE CRAZE.
Railroad men are congratulating themselves on the decline of bicycling as a fashionable fad. They confess that in the last four or five years the passion for bicycle touring has seriously curtailed their receipts. especially in their summer resort traffic. The general passenger agent of a Chicago—Wisconsin system says the wheel has been costing his line thousands of dollars every season, but he believes that there will be less country touring on wheels this summer and that his road will no longer be troubled with empty trains from this cause.

This official is probably correct in his belief that “the bicycle as a fad died,” but it is also probably true that there will be more wheels in use this than ever before. Bicycle stores are already crowded with anxious customers seeking repairs for their old or new wheels. The wheel has lost none of its popularity, but its vogue has shifted to another social class. Apparently it is no longer so much “the thing ” in fashionable circles to ride the wheel. Perhaps the automobile is to be the new fad among the comparatively wealthy. The craze for bicycle clubs and for century runs has also abated, and the humped-back scorcher has lost whatever caste he may once have had. Country touring among men in the social swim has probably abated, and the railroad managers are right in surmising that their moneyed patrons are again in a mood to pay carfare.

Nevertheless, it would be an error to imagine that there will be less wheel riding than before. The wheel has come to stay amd the change only placed it on a more solid and legitimate basis. The people who are now riding or preparing to ride the wheel are doing so not because a fad of fashion has decreed it but because they find pleasure, health, or profit in so doing. The great bulk of the riders are people of moderate means, who find the wheel a valuable and fascinating means for getting fresh air and a glimpse of the country without much expense. The bicycle manufacturers have wisely sought and secured the patronage of this great public by making wheels at reasonable prices. In spite of the doubling of prices of steel, the best of last year’s model are now built and sold for $5 less a year ago. The bicycle is now practically within reach of everybody, and, while the change in its clientele may benefit the railroads, it is likely to be felt adversely by the street car companies.

The men and women of all classes of society who have any independence and who like wheel riding for its own sake vill continue to indulge in this fine and healthful modern sport, both in the city and in the .country. These are not the “scorchers,” and all true lovers of the wheel will probably be as glad as the railroad men that the fashionable craze among the intemperate has waned.

Chicago Tribune, September 4, 1902

With the collapse of the American Bicycle company, which has asked for the appointment of a receiver in New York, the finale can be written of the most remarkable fad the country has ever known.

Commercial recognition of the wane of the cycling craze was the last to come. Cyclists themselves cast aside their wheels and wrote epitaphs two years ago, but manufacturers and retailers clung to the hope that business uses would stimulate the demand after the sport had died.

Various reasons for the puncturing of the bicycle trust are urged by bicycle dealers—all reasons except the essential one—the main output of the companies whose stock it held was unmarketable. Automobiles and even street sweepers are blamed for the collapse. Dealers assert that the company lost money branching out into the manufacture of these articles.

There still is a market for the bicycle, the dealers say, yet figures show that sales have fallen off more than 80 per cent in the last three years.

Greatest of All Crazes.
No sport ever became a mania of the proportions of cycling. Six years ago wheelmen were a guild with political power. In some cases they dictated legislation. They were responsible for road improvement. They started in the fave of opposition and fought their way against prejudices. They became so strong numerically that politicians began to play to them for their support. They forced recognition to their rights in the roads. Their races became events of the year. Their clubhouses were costly, their organizations highly perfected, and the optimistic could see no end to the career of the bicycle.

But with a suddenness as sensational as the growth of the fad, the bottom dropped out of it.

Six years ago the main boulevards were so covered with wheels that it was almost worth a pedestrian’s life to attempt to cross them. Yesterday one could have crossed and recrossed Michigan boulevard without seeing a bicycle.

Figures Show Growth and Fall.
The statistics of the fad speak for themselves. In 1898 the Illinois Cycling club, said to be the largest in the world, had 820 members. In 1899 it had 180, and shortly afterwards was disbanded. In 1898 the organization had a $45,000 clubhouse and the next year it was out of existence.

Illinois was represented in the League of American Wheelmen with 4,500 members. A report of that organization now shows fifty-five members from the state. New York had more than 27,000 members in the league. The state now has less than 2,000.

A man who was president of one of the big cycling clubs said:

I have seven wheels in the basement of my residence. Many of them are as good as new, but I have no use for them.

During the height of the fad a census of wheelmen was taken in Chicago by representatives of cycling societies. There was no infallible method of making the count, but the wheelmen systematized it as well as they could. At the end of the season it was estimated that there were between 200,000 and 300,000 wheelmen in this city alone.

Races Like a Derby.
In 1894, 1895, and 1896 the great yearly event of western wheelmen, the Chicago road race, bid fair to eclipse any sporting event in the country. As high as 506 contestants started in one of these races and the spectators were in uncounted thousands. Not even the American Derby has aroused more interest that was displayed in these road races.

An illustration of popularity of the sport can be found in the fact that on the occasion of the election of a president of the Illinois cycling club extras were printed by the morning papers the count having extended until late in the morning.

Lakeview Bicycle Cub, Orchard Street, 1890

City Full of Clubs.
Other clubs had the same experience as the Illinois. During the height of the fad any number of clubs had a membership of 500 and over. Among them were the Chicago Cycling club, the Lake View Cycling club, the Thistle Cycling club, the Woodlawn Cycling club, the Lincoln Cycling club, and the Minnette, Monitor, and Garden City clubs.

At one time the Associated Cycling clubs had a total membership of 11,000. The association recognized only such clubs as had leased quarters. Another association had a still larger membership, with 15,000 wheelmen enrolled.

Campaign Work by Wheel.
When cyclists became a political power Mayor Harrison became the “Cyclists’ Champion.” The mayor is one of the few who have not given up the sport, and considerable of his leisure time in Chicago is spent on his wheel. On one occasion Granville Browning, then running for judge, made the round of thirty-seven clubs in one day, starting early in the morning and closing at midnight.

The L.A.W. as the national organization of the wheelmen was highly perfected. New York and Pennsylvania were fighting for first honors in the league, both having over 27,000 members, and New York leading by a few. Massachusetts had 14,000 members enrolled.

A number of publications were devoted to the interests of the sport, the Referee and the Bearings in Chicago.

Can’t Explain the Collapse.
Even now the wheelmen cannot account for the decline of the sport. They do not know what it is that prompted them to put their bicycles in the basement and leave them there.

William H. Arthur, a former president of the Illinois Cycling club said:

So far as the women are concerned, it is another proposition. It became so that a woman on a bicycle was regarded as one who could be flirted with, and that killed wheeling for most of the women cyclists. But that would not account for the men putting aside their machines.

One element that detracted from the popularity of the sport was the rowdies. They would go on country runs and insist on storming hotels and eating in their sweaters. There were objectionable, but not enough so to actually kill cycling.

Fad Productive of Fortunes.
Manufacturers and retailers made fortunes out of the fad. The wiser saw that a crash was coming and retired with their millions. The sport had run its unprecedented course and when the first of a decline was observed the men who had worked up the business at the start got “from under” and left the late comer in the field to stand the brunt.

In Chicago it is even now maintained that the collapse of the American Cycle company, which was built up by A. G. Spalding and James A. Hart of Chicago, will not affect the trade, and that the business will continue under receivership just as it has before. At the local retail headquarters of the company this was asserted.

Chicago Tribune July 17, 1904

The invulnerable law of cause and effect offers a logical though Indefinite explanation of the success of scores of business enterprises which, though money making ventures today, looked like hopeless wrecks a few years ago. This statement applies particularly to the automobile industry with its countless tributaries, There are perhaps more vi,ctims of circumstances in the automobile business today than in any other one line conspicuous by reason of its popularity with the general public, Whatever else may be said about the automobile, however much it may grate upon the sensibilities of the plodding pedestrian or offend the dignity of the adamant park policeman it must be given the credit for having come to the relief of a great number of stagnant and dying industries, infusing them with new life.

It is estimated that fully 80 per Cent of the engaged In the automobile busines, or the many side lines that go to make it, were following the fate of the bicycle during the days of the wheel. This does not apply alone to dealers, but to manufacturers. both of the automobile as a whole and its composite parts. Practically every big concern which came to the fore when bIcycles were high in favor has turned its machinery to the manufacture of automobiles. Many of them continue to manufacture wheels, but the tourIng car or the runabout stands far to the front, and the bicycle, once a leader, occupies tho position of a side line. As a matter of fact the automobIle was the saving factor in the of the manufacturer, agent, and salesman. The lInes naturally call for something of the same energy and the and for this reason the automobile opened an avenue to the dealer in bicycles just at a time when it began to look as though he was down and out.

Take a walk Chicago’s automobile center, down Michigan avenue from Twelfth to Sixteenth, and you will observe on the shop windows the names of dozens of men who were as conspicuously with the bicycle trade a year ago. They were naturally buffeted into the automobile business. The new industry came at a time when the bicycle was a dead issue. It had outlived its usefulness so far as the fad loving, novelty seeking American public was concerned. Men who had their invested in bicycle machinery and material naturally looked with alarm upon the situation and were at a loss which way to turn until the automobile began to take hold of the public. Then the problem solved itself and made producers out of bicycle dealers.

Thomas B. Jeffrey’s Rambler was introduced in the 1902 Automobile Show. The Rambler was the most popular auto developed in Chicago. More than 4.2 million were sold between 1902 and their discontinuance in 1969 by the successor American Motors Corporation. As the twentieth century ended, the Rambler factory in Kenosha was used to build engines for Chrysler Corporation autos.

In considering new industries opened up by the progressive strides of the automobile, which has become of such general use as no longer to belong to the classification of novelties, the rejuvenation of old industries to rank first in the matter of importance. This is true because the craze came to the rescue of men who already had their money invested in a industry and who were unable to stem the tide of public fickleness for a pastime of which it had grown tired. It was only natural that the bicycle industry should become affiliated with with the production of automobiles and it was also natural that the men who followed the fortunes of the wheel should become the first and most ardent exponents of the touring car.

The prevalence of bicycle men in the automobile business is manifest in every branch of the trade from the big manufacturer down to the small machinist whose convenient shop used to be the boon of unlucky wheelmen. Where in years gone by we saw the bicycle repair shop we now find the garage, which may be small for the accommodation of a few machines or large and pretentious, embodying all sorts of conveniences for the automobilist. The garage is one of the really important industries made possible, in fact a necessity, by the automobile. There are scores of these stabling scattered about Chicago. They have sprung up on all sides of the city within the last two years. The man who owns an automobile pays so a month to have his machine stabled and taken care of. The garage is so essentially indispensable that it is sure to develop into one of the most inclusive industries developed by the automobile.

Perhaps no of class of manufacturers profited more handsomely by the advent of the automobile, than the big rubber concerns where tires are made. The passing of the bicycle was in reality a good thing for them, because It opened a field far more extensive and embracing much greater possibilIties. The automobile tire Is one of the really important features of the machIne. It must be strong and of high grade. For this reason there Is every chance for the manufacturer to produce expert workmanship, a condition not always possible in the small, light tire used on the bicycle.

Just as the automobile revived the business of the bicycle dealer, so did it affect the tire maker. The large concerns which practically controlled the tire output during the days of the wheel found themselves wIth little outlet for their product after the decline of the bicycle. Then came the breath of the automobile craze, and with common instinct they shifted the character of their output until today the firms which supplied most of the bicycle tires occupy the same position in relation to the automobile.

After the automobile as a pIece of machinery in form is discussed, the business becomes largely a matter of incidentals, with an innumerable of numbers of angles. The fad lies opened up an entirely new avenue to the small machinist, who finds a shop along some much frequented highway a paying proposition. Then It has developed the chauffeur, the much abused individual who operates the steering gear and is supposed to regard all speed laws and regulations with absolute disdain. The chauffeur is in reality a luxury. but he goes well with the automobIle.

It has been pointed out by real estate men that among the industries developed by the automobile the opening of land tracts at distant from the city must not be overlooked. They say that the practical elimination of distance makes outlying property more likable to men who own machines and that they have felt the effect of the automobile in numerous ways.

So it is with the manufacturer of of all sorts, from big lens equipped gas to the small oil light. Every automobile carry lights after dark. Some of thens carry five or six, and this has a tendency to make the lighting branch of thie automobile industry an important one. Several manufacturing firms have sprung up, the sole output of which is automobile lamps.

On down the list of incidentals identified with the automobile industry any number of articles will be found, each of which represents is practically a new industry or the development of an old one. Manufacturers of men’s and women’s clothing have kept pace with evolution and have found garments for a profitable addition to their stocks.

Inter Ocean, December 1, 1907

Judging from the number of Christmas bicycles that have been sold for the past few years, one might imagine that our climate is changing, and what once was regarded solely as a summer sport, has, unaccountably, wandered into other portions of the calendar.

But the fact is, there is scarcely a week in the year, even in the most northerly tier of states, when a bicycle cannot be used to good advantage, and perhaps grown folks had to wait until more youthful riders proved the case. However that may be, it is certainly true that all the year ’round riding is decidedly more common in these days, and a bicycle at Christmas time is now regarded as a most appropriate—and even timely—gift.

Riders of tender years are not worried greatly concerning fads and fashions. They know in their honest young hearts that a bicycle is a possession to be enjoyed and cherished. And they accept it for the good it can give, and think no more about it.

That is the reason, no doubt, that where one wheel was sold at Christmas time a few years ago, hundeds are sold today.

But there has been a great change for the better, even in juvenile wheels. While it was once thought, apparently, that any sort of bicycle would do, if it were to go to a youthful rider, makers with good judgement now realize that a wheel that must carry a youngster with safety, must be the equal in every particular of whose made for adults. And this is the case with the product of many manufactories today. In fact, makers take care to explain that their juvenile wheels, in material, workmanship and equipment, be as good or better than those intended for stronger and more experienced riders.

In this connection, it is only just to say that there seems to be no longer a division of the year into seasons for adult wheelmen. All the months are about the same to them, now-a-days. The bicycle plays so important a part of everyday life, is so great an economizer of money and time, and pays such royal dividends in health, digestion and good humor, that its devotees snap their fingers at fashion—or rather, are bringing fashion to the wheel again.

Those who have not paid any special attention to the remarkable renewal of interest in wheeling during the past half decade, will be astonished to know how the production of bicycles, both iun this country and abroad, is increasing. In 1904 the output in America was conservatively estimated at 200,000 bicycles, and this doubtless marked extreme ebb tide in the industry. Certainly the figures were lower than they had been since the early nineties. The increase in 1905 was, approximately, 100,000 wheels, and this was more than doubled in 1906, when the total production was put at half a million. The aggregate for 1907 is said to have reached 750,000, and a leading maker has just announced that the American production of bicycles for 1908 will reach a round million!

And after all, why not? The wheel of today is a vastly better machine than its predecessor of a dozen years ago, costs less money and with the modern accessory, the coaster brake, has actually more basis for popularity.

So, when all has been said, there are plenty of reasons for adding bicycles, both juvenile and adult, to your Christmas list. You will be in good company, for the Christmas sales this year, if one may judge from the forecasts of the dealers, are likely to break all records.

The Inter Ocean, August 29, 1910

The Passing of the Bicycle.
In 1897 there were exported from the United States bicycles and bicycle parts to the value of $7,005,323. During the fiscal year which ended June 30 last we exported only $620,760 worth of bicycles, complete and in part.

These figures strikingly illustrate the fickleness of public fancy. A generation ago nearly everybody “rode a wheel.” Children raced to school on their “bikes,” clergymen sedately pedaled to their churches, doctors went swiftly on their errands of mercy and business men of all classes rode their wheels in preference to street cars and horse-drawn vehicles.

Useful as it was for other purposes, perhaps the greatest good of the bicycle was in its adaptability as a pleasure vehicle. It enabled persons of all classes to travel quickly and cheaply during an idle hour or day. It took the flat-dweller of the noisy, crowded city out to the quiet and beauty of the country. On Sundays and holidays there were almost unending processions of bicycles on the thoroughfares leading to the suburbs and outlying territory.

Such trips undoubtedly made thousands of people change from city to suburban and country homes, and lengthened their lives by making them healthier and happier. The learned the joys of “simple life” more than compensated for the attractions of the city.

The bicycle was the advance guard of the automobile. It educated the public to the charms of travel in our highways and byways. Incidentally, it gave great impetus to a plan for the general improvement of public thoroughfares in city, town and country. The automobile simply could not have its present popularity had it arrived with our roads generally in the conditions in which the pioneer bicyclists found them.

In one respect the superseding of the bicycle by the automobile is to be regretted. The bicyclist was compelled to take healthy exercise. Every trip helped to develop his lungs and muscles. The automobile is a more social institution, but tends to promote a love of ease rather than physical development. Still, it must be admitted that even the “bicycle built for two” was not adapted to conversational pleasure.

In view of the fact that the bicycle today costs only a fraction of what it did at the height of its popularity, its passing seems strange. In practically every country on the globe its sales have been decreasing since 1897, judging by the experts from this country. In that year we exported $2,375,000 worth to Great Britain, and only $126,000 worth last year. Germany paid us over $1,00,000 for bicycles in 1897, but only $14,000 the past year. The “bicycle craze” reached its height in Japan in 1904, when we sold her $426,000 worth. Last year she bought only $21,000 worth. Cuba is the only nation showing an increase in recent years in the number of bicycles used, but even there it is losing ground. In the fiscal year ended June 30, 1908, we sold there $43,000 worth of bicycles, but last year she bought from us only half as many.

The whole world owes a debt of gratitude to the bicycle and its passing is to be regretted.

Chicago Daily News, June 15, 1915

Rail Strike Solution

NOTES:

¹ The Referee and Cycle Trade Journal was published in Chicago from 1892-1897.