1901 Wiggert

[pem]

Did anybody ever hear of the 1901 Wiggert made in Lacrosse, Wi?
Supposedly only one was ever made. I'll attach a photo I found
while cruising the Wi. State Historical Society website. For 1901 it looks pretty good. I have tried to track down the family members with no luck. Nobody in Lacrosse that I talked too has ever heard of it but we have the photo and a newspaper article.

[koanes]

Interesting. I am from LaCrosse, the Wiggert Brothers hardware store in town was a fixture for many yrs. I wonder if the machine was created by a relative. I will have to ask around a bit.

[pem]

1901 Wiggert

Good to hear from somebody from LaCrosse. I have a copy of the
newspaper article that gives the whole story of who built it and where it was built. It is quite interesting. Contact me and I will forward you a copy or just go to your local library and look it up.

Dick, 608-538-3403

[HarleyCreation]

Wiggert

Nice find pem!

I hadn't heard of this machine before either. It has the looks of one type of 1901 motorcycle of the Thomas-Mitchell-Merkel variety with the motor filling the space below the frame neck and using belt-drive. There were lots of these one-off jobs but most of them weren't documented like this early Wiggert.

I wonder if Wiggert took this bike to the top of Grandad Bluff or over the Mindoro Cut?

Maybe up Wildcat Mountain?

Lots of great riding in that Mississippi River coulee country. I fondly remember it from my early riding days.

[pem]

1901 Wiggert

Hi Herb, wouldn't it be grand if this motorcycle was still sitting
in a farm shed or garage? According to the newspaper article it
was sold by the original owner and was lost after that.

Your right about these one-offs. A guy in Ripon, Wi. built one too and Harry Miller from Indy car fame also built a motorcycle in the city where he grew up. Dam if I can remember the name of the city now. What do you think that motorcycle would be worth if it was found?

Your right, the riding in this part of the country is great. It is so
good I sold my house and bought a little place not far from the Mississippi river so I can just leave my garage and go riding on
some of the best roads in the country. I rode around New Zealand
for a couple of weeks and I can honestly say these roads around here are almost as scenic and challenging. But without the cliffs and speed cameras.

I haven't made it to the Mindoro Cut yet but I'm working on it.
It was 13* below zero last week and there is 15 inches of snow on the ground so it will have to wait till spring.

[HarleyCreation]

Yes, the coulee country is fabulous riding from NW Ill and NE Iowa up thru SW Wis. past LaCrosse into the region of older drift near Menominee and Hudson. When I got my first mc in 1970 (CL160) that is the region I explored the most. You were smart re-locating out there. You know, that was also a favorite destination of Harley-Davidson test riders and it was either Richland Center (or Reedsburg?) they had rented garage as a base of operations in the 1920s.

I wonder what motor that Wiggert has? Does the article claim he built his own motor? That seems doubtful and I wonder if the motor can be identified by make? The design of the bike sure looks Mitchell or Thomas or early Merkel like.

[pem]

The article says he built the entire motorcycle. He built the engine which had "jump spark" ignition. He also built the caruretor and the coil. It was fitted with coaster brakes and heavy pneumatic tires. The frame was made from a heavy tandem bicycle for which he paid $100.00. It had four dry cell batteries. He had access to a machine shop on a local farm where another guy(Frank Sutten) was building a motor for an automobile. The article says that Mr. Wiggert "dropped in to watch Sutten at his work, and to ask questions."

Wiggert said he could reach 30mph and visited all the surrounding villages in spite of the poor roads. The article also says that "if he had had some one to back him up with money, he is confident he could have made the enterprise a success."

The article is from a local newspaper in 1919.

[HarleyCreation]

I'm not calling Wiggert a fibber, but the fact that the story was told many years later (1919) makes it more likely that the story "growed" in the telling. We need not go over the many well known cases of THAT mischief including the biggest names in the game.

However, Wiggert certainly could have built the entire machine, esp. if he had access to a good machine shop where a guy was building a car motor. We know those old time guys did amazing things....

Did you try tracking this Frank Sutten down? Like where his farm was? If the bike really was built in 1901 it should be mentioned in the local newspapers as a motorcycle at that early early date would have been a sensation, esp. in the boonies.

1901 was the magical year when the very first motorcycles arrived in Milwaukee. When they publically tested the Mitchell motorcycle in Racine in Feb. 1901 reports said that bicycle riders were AMAZED because they didn't believe a practical motorcycle was even possible let alone to see one operating on "vapor" power.

I love that phrase: vapor power.

Wouldn't it be great to track that Wiggert down and find it in some old shed or barn out there? There's plenty of places for it to be hiding!

Thanks for posting this. I made a Wiggert card for my files with circa1901 for a date.

Are you going to do more research on it when the snow melts?

[pem]

I thought of the "mischief" angle as soon as I located the article.
But it was quite a good article with a lot of info. I checked some of the local newspapers from 1900 to 1902 and didn't locate anything. I thought that unusual but that doesn't mean anything. Look at HD. Between 1904 and 1905 we have only located 1 photo in the local newspapers in Milwaukee. And the Comet motorcycle didn't exist if we go by what we find in the local newspapers.

Frank Sutten worked on a farm in their machine shop. It wasn't his farm. I was going to locate the farm last summer but ran out of time. Next spring will tell.

[c.o.]

Very interesting story!!! It would be cool to hear any further news on this machine as time goes on. It makes one wonder,how many one-offs were actually made???

[HarleyCreation]

Originally posted by pem
I thought of the "mischief" angle as soon as I located the article.
But it was quite a good article with a lot of info. I checked some of the local newspapers from 1900 to 1902 and didn't locate anything. I thought that unusual but that doesn't mean anything. Look at HD. Between 1904 and 1905 we have only located 1 photo in the local newspapers in Milwaukee. And the Comet motorcycle didn't exist if we go by what we find in the local newspapers.

Frank Sutten worked on a farm in their machine shop. It wasn't his farm. I was going to locate the farm last summer but ran out of time. Next spring will tell.

I don't know if I'd give up on the early papers yet. A motorcycle circa-1901 LaCrosse would have been BIG news. Sort of like a UFO landing on the White House lawn today. Do you plan looking in the 1903 and 1904 papers? That wouldn't hurt. That's still very early. After that Indians should start showing up and a home-built wouldn't have been such a sensation.

A very early Harley utility engine (circa1905) was found in a junkyard near LaCrosse. So Mr. Wiggert's bike might still be out there too! And who knows, looking for it might find another antique motorcycle. The coulee country has a million old barns on those twisting backroads leading nowhere. Great places for "grandpa's" motor-bike to be still out back in the chicken-coop. Years ago I found old Panheads out there and a Knucklehead with 14,000 original miles and in mint original shape. Didn't get them, but they were out there.

Probably older stuff too!

[HarleyCreation]

Originally posted by c.o.
Very interesting story!!! It would be cool to hear any further news on this machine as time goes on. It makes one wonder,how many one-offs were actually made???

Lots of home-builts were made. Most with somebody else's motor but many guys took up the challenge and from a early date too. I hope we hear more of this Wiggert!

[pem]

I plan on continuing my research next spring looking in local newspapers and so forth. I have more time than money so I'm in no big hurry. I will keep you guys informed if I find any more information. It's very unlikely but I have been proven wrong before. One day years ago I was in a antique store In Jefferson, Wi. and asked the clerk if they had any motorcycle items. An older
gentleman overheard me and when I was leaving the store he approached me and said he had some items and I could look at them if I liked. Well he had original photos of 1913 Jefferson's on the local fair track and a as new 1911/12 Waverley brochure. One thing led to another and he gave me the photos and I paid next to nothing for the brochure. That'll never happen again.

[HarleyCreation]

Originally posted by pem
I plan on continuing my research next spring looking in local newspapers and so forth. I have more time than money so I'm in no big hurry. I will keep you guys informed if I find any more information. It's very unlikely but I have been proven wrong before. One day years ago I was in a antique store In Jefferson, Wi. and asked the clerk if they had any motorcycle items. An older
gentleman overheard me and when I was leaving the store he approached me and said he had some items and I could look at them if I liked. Well he had original photos of 1913 Jefferson's on the local fair track and a as new 1911/12 Waverley brochure. One thing led to another and he gave me the photos and I paid next to nothing for the brochure. That'll never happen again.

Why not? I'll bet if you keep looking it will happen again! Maybe not the Wiggert, but something will turn up. Good luck!

[jurassic]

comet

speaking of the comet. whats the story there?this is the only pic i have found.they started up in 1909?their connection to harley? any other pics?