83. “Two Killed at Waltham.”
84. Donovan, “Pacemakers Killed.”
85. “Death Race,” Boston Herald, May 31, 1900.
86. John J. Donovan, “Nelson Shows the Way,” Boston Globe, July 10, 1900.
87. “Pacemaker Tournier,” Boston Globe, undated clip pasted into Champion’s scrapbook.
88. Franklin B. Tucker, “C. H. Metz: Automotive Pioneer,” Antique Automobile (Hershey, PA) (March-April 1967): 11.
89. Chris Sinsabaugh, Who, Me? Forty Years of Automobile History (Detroit: Arnold-Powers, 1945), p. 24.
90. Tucker, “C. H. Metz,” p. 7.
91. O. L. Stevens, “Stabling Automobiles around Harvard,” Automobile Magazine (New York), January 1901, p. 52.
92. Ibid.
93. Ibid.
94. Ibid.
95. Ibid.
96. Ibid.
97. Ibid.
98. Ibid., p. 53.
99. Ibid.
100. Ibid.
101. “Boston Saw the Start of Champion’s Fortune,” Boston Globe, October 28, 1927. The unsigned article remarked, “He was one of the first men in Massachusetts consistently arrested for speeding his motorcycle.”
102. “Motor Notes,” unidentified newspaper clip from Champion’s scrapbook.
103. “John J. Donovan,” Boston Globe obituary, May 28, 1950.
104. Ibid.
105. Boston Directory, p. 471.
106. “John J. Donovan.”
107. Donovan, “Albert Champion Dies.”
108. Ibid.
109. Ibid.
110. Ibid.
111. Ibid.
112. John J. Donovan, “Hurled to Earth: Albert Champion Badly Hurt at Readville,” Boston Globe, unidentified date, from Champion’s scrapbook.
113. Ibid.
114. Ibid.
115. Ibid.
116. John J. Donovan, “M. Champion Hurt in Road Accident: Tricycle Breaks While Traveling Speed in Road Accident and He Narrowly Escapes Death,” Boston Globe, July 16, 1900.
117. Ibid.
118. Ibid.
119. “Albert Champion on His New Motor Cycle,” caption to photo in the Boston Post, August 5, 1900, p. 7.
120. Ibid.
121. Ibid.
122. Ibid.
123. Ibid.
124. Jerry Hatfield, American Racing Motorcycles (Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1989), p. 213.
CHAPTER 7. AMERICA’S FASTEST MAN ON WHEELS
1. John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1936), preface, p. viii.
2. “Results of the Events on the Track,” Motor Vehicle Review (Chicago), September 27, 1900, p. 37; “News for Wheelmen,” Boston Globe, September 19, 1900.
3. “Results of the Events on the Track”; “News for Wheelmen.”
4. “Results of the Events on the Track.”
5. “To Continue Auto Meet,” Chicago Daily News, September 19, 1900.
6. John B. Rae, The American Automobile, A Brief History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 5.
7. “Michigan Street, Near Rush, Where Trucks Sink to Hubs in Mud,” Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1900, p. 1.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. “Lowers Ten-Mile Record: Fast Time at Opening Day of Automobile Races,” Chicago Tribune, September 19, 1900.
13. Ibid.
14. “Mini-Historical Statistics,” US Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/statab/hist/HS-07.pdf (accessed April 12, 2014).
15. “Results of the Events on the Track.”
16. Ibid., p. 38; “Best Racing Card of the Week,” Chicago Tribune, September 22, 1900.
17. “Results of the Events on the Track.”
18. Alexander Winton, Automotive Hall of Fame, Dearborn, Michigan, http://www.automotivehalloffame.org/inductee/alexander-winton/704/ (accessed December 15, 2013). Winton was inducted in 2005.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. The Cleveland Historical Team, “Winton Motor Carriage Co.,” Cleveland Historical, http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/267 (accessed December 15, 2013).
23. Ibid.
24. Rae, American Automobile, A Brief History, p. 22; Sinsabaugh, Who, Me? pp. 54–55.
25. Rae, American Automobile, A Brief History, p. 22; Sinsabaugh, Who, Me? pp. 54–55.
26. John J. Donovan, “Albert Champion at Chicago Makes Fast Time: Frenchman Rides the Three-Wheeler One-Mile in 1m 19 1-5s: Also Breaks World’s Records up to 50-Miles—Nervy Chauffeur On Horse Track Goes the Long-Hoped For 40 Miles in One Hour,” Boston Globe, September 23, 1900.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.; “Lowers Ten-Mile Record: Fast Times at Opening Day of Automobile Races.”
29. “Lowers Ten-Mile Record.”
30. Ibid.
31. “Best Day of Auto Meet: Washington Park Track Now Dry Enough for Speed Trials,” Chicago Daily News, September 20, 1900.
32. “Too Soft for Automobiles: Condition of Washington Park Track Postpones the Racing Card,” Chicago Tribune, September 20, 1900.
33. Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit: An American Legend (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002), p. 63, referring to analysis by George Pratt of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to gauge the top speed of quarter horses.
34. “Best Day of Auto Meet.”
35. Donovan, “Albert Champion at Chicago Makes Fast Time.”
36. “Champion Beats Skinner,” Chicago Tribune, September 21, 1900.
37. “Results of the Events on the Track.”
38. Ibid.
39. Donovan, “Albert Champion at Chicago Makes Fast Time.” The subhead included: “Also Breaks World’s Records up to 50 miles—Nervy Chauffeur on Horse Track Goes the Long-Hoped-For 40 miles in One Hour.”
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.; “Automobile Record Broken,” Chicago Daily News, September 22, 1900.
43. Donovan, “Albert Champion at Chicago Makes Fast Time.” Donovan also reported that Champion won another $500 in a side bet with Kenneth A. Skinner.
44. “The Great St. Louis Fair: Fair Grounds To-Day,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 3, 1900.
45. “Big Thursday at the Fair: Close on to 100,000 People Entered the Gates Yesterday,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 5, 1900.
46. Ibid.
47. US Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/population/estimates (accessed April 12, 2014).
48. “Big Thursday at the Fair.”
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. “Fair Attendance Grows,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 4, 1900.
52. Sinsabaugh, Who, Me? p. 54.
53. US Census Bureau.
54. Sinsabaugh, Who, Me? p. 55.
55. Stacy Perman, A Grand Complication: The Race to Build the World’s Most Legendary Watch (New York: Atria Books, 2013), p. 22.
56. Ibid., p. 38.
57. Sinsabaugh, Who, Me? p. 55.
58. Stephen B. Goddard, Colonel Albert Pope and His American Dream Machines: The Life and Times of a Bicycle Tycoon (Jefferson, NC: McCarland and Company, 2000), p. 179.
59. Ibid., p. 163.
60. Sinsabaugh, Who, Me? p. 56.
61. Rae, American Automobile, A Brief History, p. 13.
62. Goddard, Colonel Albert Pope and His American Dream Machines, p. 151.
63. Ted Case, Power Plays: The U.S. Presidency, Electric Cooperatives, and the Transformation of Rural America (Wilsonville, OR: Ted Case, 2013), p. ix, discusses President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on May 11, 1935, signing the executive order establishing the Rural Electrification Administration under the US Department of Labor that would bring electricity for the first time to 90 percent of US farms.
64. “Battery Facts,” http://www.batteryfacts.co/uk/BatteryHistory/Edison.html (accessed February 15, 2014).
&nbs
p; 65. Rae, American Automobile, A Brief History, pp. 13–15.
66. “The Stanley Steamer, Why the Fascination?” http://www.stanleymotorcarriage.com/GeneralTechnical/Generalinfo.htm (accessed June 23, 2014).
67. Rae, American Automobile, A Brief History, p. 49.
68. Ibid. Between 1907 and 1910 the price of a gallon of gas jumped from around 9 cents a gallon to 17 cents.
69. Sinsabaugh, Who Me? p. 56; Alfred P. Sloan with Boyden Sparkes, Adventures of a White-Collar Man (New York: Doubleday, Doran, and Company, 1941), p. 42; photo of the track can be found at http://wcbsfm.cbslocal.com/photo-galleries/2013/07/31/10-famous-new-york-buildings-that-no-longer-exist/ (accessed January 5, 2014).
70. Sloan, Adventures of a White-Collar Man, p. 14.
71. Ibid., p. 41.
72. Ibid., p. 42.
73. Sinsabaugh, Who Me? p. 56.
74. Ibid., pp. 56–57.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid.
77. Julie Husband and Jim O’Loughlin, Daily Life in the United States, 1870–1900 (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 2004), p. 36.
78. “List of Defunct Automobile Manufacturers in the United States, Wikipedia, http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_automobile_manufacturers_of_the_United_States (accessed April 12, 2014).
79. Charles Leerhsen, Blood and Smoke: A True Tale of Mystery, Mayhem, and the Birth of the Indy 500 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), p. 110.
80. L. Spencer Riggs, “Carl G. Fisher, Indiana’s Best Kept Secret,” Automobile Quarterly, May 1996, p. 68.
81. Rae, American Automobile, A Brief History, p. 17.
82. Sinsabaugh, Who Me? p. 39.
83. “1900: 8,000 Automobiles, 4 Billion Cigarettes,” in Chronicle of America: From Prehistory to Today (New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1995), p. 529.
84. Ibid.
85. Birth certificate of Julie Elisa Delpuech, December 4, 1876, Archives de Paris, 18 Boulevard Sérurier, 75019 Paris, on microfilm #950 (accessed September 10, 2004). Also available at http://canadp-archivesenligne.paris.fr.
86. “Where Is Fournier Chauffeur?” clip in French from unidentified newspaper in Champion’s scrapbook.
87. “An Expert on Falls: Albert Champion Tells of Many Falls, On Crutches Still from His Latest Experience,” unidentified clip, possibly New York Sun, from Champion’s scrapbook.
88. Ibid.
89. Ibid.
90. Ibid.
91. “Champion Makes New Mile Motor Record,” unidentified clip from Champion’s scrapbook.
92. Grantland Rice, “Cycle Kings to Settle Title,” Atlanta Journal, September 16, 1903.
93. Personal interviews 1985–1987 with Alf Goullet and Freddie Spencer, who had competed on the professional US cycling circuit. Goullet participated between 1910 and 1925, and Spencer between 1920 and1936.
94. Rice, “Cycling Kings to Settle Title.”
95. Reed Browning, Cy Young: A Baseball Life (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), p. 219.
96. Andrew Ritchie, Major Taylor: The Extraordinary Career of a Champion (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 159–160.
97. “A New Cycling Record: Albert Champion Rides a Mile in 1:29 4-5 and Defeated Taylor,” New York Times, August 8, 1901.
98. “Racing Cyclist Injured: John Nelson’s Leg Mangled in Race against ‘Jimmy’ Michael,” New York Times, September 5, 1901.
99. Ibid.
100. “Cyclist Nelson’s Racing Days Over,” New York Times, September 8, 1901.
101. “Cyclist Nelson’s Funeral To-Day,” New York Times, September 11, 1901.
102. Pierre Chany, La Fabuleuse Histoire du Cyclisme: Des Origines à 1955 (Paris: Nathan, 1988), p. 141.
103. “Dies Making Records: Harry Elkes Killed While Riding His Fastest Race on New Charles River Track,” Bicycling World, June 6, 1903, p. 321.
104. “Harry Elkes Killed in Bicycle Race,” New York Times, May 31, 1903.
105. Ibid.
106. 1920 US Census, City of Flint, MI, January 12, 1920. Elise reported that she immigrated in 1901.
107. Address listed on Marriage Registration, Cambridge City Hall, Cambridge, MA, October 31, 1902.
108. Thomas S. LaMarre, “One Piece at a Time: The Cars of C. H. Metz,” Automobile Quarterly, January 1994, p. 6; Franklin B. Tucker, “C. H. Metz: Automotive Pioneer,” Antique Automobile (March-April 1967): 13.
109. “Patrick T. Powers,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_T._Powers (accessed September 21, 2013).
110. Ibid.
111. “Joseph Pulitzer,” The New Encyclopedia Britannica (London: 2005).
112. Ibid.
113. Ibid.
114. Ibid.
115. “Michael and His Mascot ‘Trixy,’” New York World, December 7, 1901.
116. “Walthour Wins Six-Day Race by Scant Yard,” New York World, December 15, 1901.
117. Ibid.
118. Ibid.
119. Ibid.
120. Ibid.
121. Ibid.
122. Ibid.
123. Ibid.
124. Ibid.
125. LaMarre, “One Piece at a Time,” p. 6; Tucker, “C. H. Metz,” p. 13.
126. LaMarre, “One Piece at a Time,” p. 6; Tucker, “C. H. Metz,” p. 13.
127. LaMarre, “One Piece at a Time,” p. 6; Tucker, “C. H. Metz,” p. 13.
128. “He Trained Here,” Washington Star, June 9, 1902.
129. Ibid.
130. Ibid.
131. Ibid.
132. “Elkes’ Return,” Boston Herald, May 25, 1902.
133. “To Ride a Clément Is to Be Happy,” Clément catalogue, 1904.
134. US Passport application of Basil De Guichard, May 16, 1924.
135. “Basil W. de Guichard, Former AC Head, Dies,” Flint Journal, May 30, 1958.
136. Ibid.
137. US Passport application.
138. Cycle Age and Trade Review, advertisement, August 7, 1902.
139. “He Trained Here.”
140. “Tonight’s Big Race: Champion and Freeman Meet at Coliseum in Ten-Mile Event,” Washington Star, June 11, 1902.
141. “He Trained Here.”
142. Ibid.
143. Ibid.
144. Ibid.
145. “Racing,” Bicycling World, July 24, 1902, p. 467.
146. “Racing,” Bicycling World, August 28, 1902, p. 572.
147. “Racing,” Bicycling World, September 11, 1902, p. 511.
148. Ibid.
149. Rice, “Cycle Kings to Settle Title”; W. A. Pritchard, “Albert Champion a Cycle Marvel: Wonderful Records Made by Manufacturer in His Younger Days Are Recalled,” New York Sun, January 7, 1917.
150. Marriage Registration in Cambridge, MA, City Hall, October 31, 1902.
151. Ibid.
152. Ibid.
153. LaMarre, “One Piece at a Time,” p. 6.
154. Tucker, “C. H. Metz,” p. 14.
155. “The History of the AMA,” website of the American Motorcyclist Association, http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/about/history (accessed June 23, 2014).
156. “Automobile Topics of Interest,” New York Times, May 24, 1903.
157. John J. Donovan, “Champion Rides a Mile in 58 4-5s: Wonderful Performance of the Frenchman at Charles River Track,” Boston Globe, July 12, 1903, p. 1.
158. Ibid.
159. “Within the Fold: The Motor Was Brought to This Country from Paris by Albert Champion and Originally Cost $1,500,” Motorcycle Illustrated (New York), September 1, 1908, p. 30.
160. Andrew M. Homan, Life in the Slipstream: The Legend of Bobby Walthour Sr. (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2011), p. 108.
161. Ibid.
162. Ibid.
163. “Automobile Topics of Interest.”
164. Ibid.
165. Ibid.
166. Ibid.
167. Henry Ford Museum display, text from author visit, October 24, 2013, at the 1902 Ford “999” Race Ca
r, Dearborn, MI. More information available at American Heritage, http://www.americanheritage.com/content/1902-Ford-999-race-car-built-henry-ford (accessed June 11, 2014)
168. William F. Nolan, Barney Oldfield: The Life and Times of America’s Legendary Speed King (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1961), p. 51.
169. “Automobile Topics of Interest.”
170. Amos G. Batchelder, “Motor Racing in America—At the Empire City Track,” New York Sun, June 6, 1903; Nolan, Barney Oldfield, p. 51.
171. Rae, American Automobile, A Brief History, p. 46. By 1910 all US automakers had abandoned mounting the steering wheel on the left side to meet conditions of American driving.
172. Batchelder, “Motor Racing in America”; “World’s Record Broken: Champion Does Mile on Motor Cycle in 1m. 4 1-5 s,” Boston Herald, May 31, 1903.
173. Batchelder, “Motor Racing in America.”
174. Ibid.
175. Ibid.; “World’s Record Broken: Barney Oldfield of Toledo Makes a Mile in 1m 1 3-5s. at Yonkers, Boston Herald, May 31, 1903.
176. Batchelder, “Motor Racing in America.”
177. Nolan, Barney Oldfield.
178. Ibid.
179. Ibid.
180. Ibid.
181. Ibid.
182. “World’s Record Broken.”
183. “The Auto Race Meet Proves a Big Success,” Boston Herald, May 31, 1903.
184. “Harry Elkes Killed in Bicycle Race,” p. 1.
185. John J. Donovan, “Harry Elkes Killed in Fearful Bicycle Mix-up,” Boston Globe, May 31, 1903, p. 1.
186. Ibid.
187. Ibid.
188. Ibid.
189. Ibid.
190. Ibid.
191. Ibid.
192. Ibid.
193. Ibid.
194. Ibid.
195. Ibid.
196. Ibid.
197. Ibid.
198. Ibid.
199. Ibid.
200. “The Track Mile under a Minute: Barney Oldfield in Match Race at Indianapolis Meet Breaks 1 and 5-Mile Records, Making Mile in 59 3-5 Seconds,” Motor Age, June 25, 1903, p. 6; “Marvelous Driving in Oldfield-Cooper Match Race in Indianapolis,” Automobile, June 27, 1903, p. 663; Nolan, Barney Oldfield, p. 53.
201. Nolan, Barney Oldfield, p. 21.
202. Ibid.
203. Ibid., p. 24.
204. Ibid.
205. Ibid., p. 25.
206. Ibid.
207. Ibid.
208. Ibid.
209. Ibid.
210. Ibid., p. 30.
211. Ibid., p. 37.
212. “Death Comes to Tom Cooper in Auto Accident, Detroit News, November 20, 1906.
The Fast Times of Albert Champion Page 41
