Unpublished early HD history documents

[pem]

The first is an ad showing 1954 as the 50th Anniversary of the Harley-Davidson Motor Co. Most everybody reading this probably knows this already.

Here is scan of what I remember is from the Milwaukee Journal in 1936 showing the backyard shed. They said it was there in 1902 already and they built 6 motorcycles in 1903 and 1904. Ya right!

The last is an article from Oct. 31, 1912 "Motorcycling" magazine. Some people already had a very hard time believing the motorcycle manufacturers advertising hype 106 years ago.

[pem]

More great material Dick!

You are correct the shed clipping from 1936 was published in the Milw Journal on Saturday 10-03-1936. What was the source of the 2003 Rosenblum rebuttal to At The Creation, maybe H.O.G. magazine? Enjoyed the untruthful mc trades article and the Waverly mfg documents. Thanks for keeping things interesting!

The Rosenblum article was in a Milwaukee Journal newspaper right before the Elton John Extravaganza. But when I cut out the article I mistakenly left off the date. Duh!

I also have a review of Herb's book from the Journal which I will post.

Your Welcome

[pem]

Following are interesting articles about a contest in Milwaukee during August 1910 to choose a motorcycle for the Milwaukee Police Dept. I believe at this time the Milwaukee Sheriff Dept. already had a HD motorcycle.

Also note that there is a Milwaukee made Comet racing. By this time I thought that the Milwaukee made Comet was already out of business. This must have been the last hurrah for that make. I hope to have a article about the Comet for our club magazine soon.

[Steve Swan]

Following are interesting articles about a contest in Milwaukee during August 1910 to choose a motorcycle for the Milwaukee Police Dept. I believe at this time the Milwaukee Sheriff Dept. already had a HD motorcycle.

Also note that there is a Milwaukee made Comet racing. By this time I thought that the Milwaukee made Comet was already out of business. This must have been the last hurrah for that make. I hope to have a article about the Comet for our club magazine soon.

Thank you for sharing these wonderful articles, i am enjoying reading them! i have Herb Wagner's "At the Beginning and have read it three times and get something new each time i've read it.

i don't know a thing about Rosenblum but it sounds like there were "connections" and "politics" that awarded him the position and then preserved his "tenure."

[RichO]

I just thought I'd relate this bit of information that would seem to fit on this thread. It must have been twenty years ago give or take that I was sitting with a bunch of guys with Dale Walksler upstairs at his home (three story x-hospital) in Mount Vernon when he said I should write an article about what he was going to show me. I 'd never really thought about what the Company was passing down as their history of starting in 1903. Dale showed me a couple of pre-teen Enthusiast I believe they were that stated the Company started in 1904. Exact wording was like two years ago we were founded and this was in a 1905 copy, 1907 copy stated four years ago. You get the idea. Then Dale said look at this and I don't remember the exact year of the copy but it said we were found X amount of years ago and it came out as 1903. So even that far back they started to alter their history for whatever reason. I never did anything with the information but I know everyone in the room that day was then convinced the jig was up, the genie was out of the bottle, etc.

[pem]

Thank you for sharing these wonderful articles, i am enjoying reading them! i have Herb Wagner's "At the Beginning and have read it three times and get something new each time i've read it.

i don't know a thing about Rosenblum but it sounds like there were "connections" and "politics" that awarded him the position and then preserved his "tenure."

Hi Steve, I'm glad you like this old stuff. Like me sometimes you must have had a senior moment. It's "At the Creation". I really don't know much about Marty Rosenblum. He wasn't very talkative when I was at the archives. I was there after Herb told them they didn't make any motorcycles in 1903 so they seemed kinda gaurded and protective.

[pem]

I just thought I'd relate this bit of information that would seem to fit on this thread. It must have been twenty years ago give or take that I was sitting with a bunch of guys with Dale Walksler upstairs at his home (three story x-hospital) in Mount Vernon when he said I should write an article about what he was going to show me. I 'd never really thought about what the Company was passing down as their history of starting in 1903. Dale showed me a couple of pre-teen Enthusiast I believe they were that stated the Company started in 1904. Exact wording was like two years ago we were founded and this was in a 1905 copy, 1907 copy stated four years ago. You get the idea. Then Dale said look at this and I don't remember the exact year of the copy but it said we were found X amount of years ago and it came out as 1903. So even that far back they started to alter their history for whatever reason. I never did anything with the information but I know everyone in the room that day was then convinced the jig was up, the genie was out of the bottle, etc.

Thanks for the information. I don't know much about the Enthusiast magazines. I know who published them of course. I didn't think they were published so early. 1905? 1907? We would love to see copies of the original pre-teen Enthusiast that you saw. When did HD start publishing these magazines?

Over the last 28 years I have heard many stories from different people about HD origins. Most were just hearsay but it dawned on me that something just wasn't right. The facts didn't make sense when compared to the myth. Herb new this way before me. Like I said in an earlier post I only came across this stuff while looking for something else.

[pem]

Here is that book review from the Milwaukee Journal of Herb's book from August of 2003 just before the 100th Anniversary.

[pem]

Those Wisconsin Motorist magazines are really rare. The early issues, 1909-1914, have motorcycle news but after 1914 the motorcycle section disappears. It seems 1914 was a pivotal year in the history of motorcycling. A lot of manufacturers went out of business after this. As well as cyclecars. It's like cyclecars fell off the face of the earth. They were everywhere in 1913/14.

[RichO]

Pem, I'm not sure of the dates of the one's Dale had but, it was some time ago and were less than sober, they were the earliest produced though and the first couple of ones stated the company first satrted producing machines in 1904 then later issues said 1903. All this makes Bruce's running 1905 even more special.

[pem]

DrSprocket, I understand. My remembry doesn't work very good either. Herb clearly showed 1904 was their first year with the prototypes and 1905 as first year of production. All my research has confirmed that too. Plus there are other people out there that knew this too and have their own documentation but have not shared it.

Some people believe that Bruce's 1905 might even be older than the Archives bike. And his runs for crying out loud. I think thats pretty remarkable.

[Steve Swan]

Hi Steve, I'm glad you like this old stuff. Like me sometimes you must have had a senior moment. It's "At the Creation". I really don't know much about Marty Rosenblum. He wasn't very talkative when I was at the archives. I was there after Herb told them they didn't make any motorcycles in 1903 so they seemed kinda gaurded and protective.

Ha! yeah! senior moment! i love history. i try to find/read all related to machines i caretake; i collect every piece of literature i can find about my machines or related to my machines. and the early history of H-D is fascinating from the standpoint it was the beginnings of the motorized era and the beginning of the end of the animal powered era. i am a big US ante and post-bellum history buff. not to get off the subject, but just preceding the motorized era, when bicycles were in vogue, the "Wheelmen" were, imho, the greatest generation of iron men - one of the many links available to learn about these stalwart fellows - http://www.sdpb.org/blogs/arts-and-c...dakota-five-o/

[pem]

I love history also. It's a coincidence that you shared that bicycling story. The bicycle era in our country has pretty much been forgotten. The Buffalo Soldiers in the story just hit the NE corner of Nebraska according to the article. It just so happens Perry Mack grew up in that area of Nebraska just outside of Pender, Neb. He could have easily bicycled from his farm to see them pass. In 1897 Perry would have been 19 years old. Or he could have taken a train too. Back then passenger trains were everywhere. One of Perry's biographies says he was a bicycle racer and builder. I'd like to think Perry was in Crawford or Belmont to greet the soldiers. Family history is that Perry at this time period tried to enlist in the army.

[pem]

Here's that book review from the Milwaukee Journal. It took a lot of guts for that book reviewer to write that just weeks from the celebration. I'm sure she caught some flack.

[Steve Swan]

Hmm. She, Geeta Sharma-Jensen made it until 2009 when the internet killed so many newspaper people's jobs - http://bookcritics.org/blog/archive/...tinel-journal1