“Carl Fisher did not live the American dream – he made the American dream. The dirt-poor Indiana boy built his dreams into vast fortunes, and nothing was impossible to Carl G. Fisher. He had the vision to see, the daring plan, and the courage to build”

                                                                               Howard Kleinberg. author, historian 

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“Carl Fisher did not live the American dream – he made the American dream. The dirt-poor Indiana boy built his dreams into vast fortunes, and nothing was impossible to Carl G. Fisher. He had the vision to see, the daring plan, and the courage to build”
Howard Kleinberg
author, historian
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An unsung hero, overlooked and forgotten by the editors of “Who’s Who,” Carl Fisher is one of the most influential people to have ever walked the planet.

His short list of achievements:
Filled Indianapolis with HiWheel bikes and established it as the world’s top Eagle HiWheel stronghold
Owned largest and first car dealership in the world
Driving force for company, Presto Lite, which built factories all over Indianapolis and America to make it possible to drive a car at night
Owned first car in Indiana as well as one of the first cars in the USA and became one of the first long distance motoring pioneers when, in 1900, he drove it from New York City to Indianapolis (~700 miles)
Catalyst for first Auto Row in world making Indianapolis the original car capital of America as it served 97 different local car makers
Driving force for the Indy 500, still the largest spectator event in the world today
Driving force for first road to cross a continent, from New York to San Francisco, the Lincoln Hwy
Built the Dixie Hwy from Canada to Miami, FL
Built the resort community of Miami Beach (an island next to Miami)
Built the resort community of Montauk, NY
Had business partnerships with:
Barney Oldefield, the first man to go 60 mph and America’s first car racing star
James Allison of Allison Transmission still in business today in Indianapolis
Arthur Newby, one of the fathers of:
Butler University
Indy 500 Motor Speedway
Diamond Chain that we talk about in this book still also going strong in Indianapolis
National Motor Vehicle, the oldest still standing structure in the U.S. that made motorcars (located in Indianapolis)
Newby Oval, a short lived velodrome in Indianapolis that was lighted and once one of the best in the world.

Fisher even got William Packard, of Packard Motor Co, a man rich in car industry and high society contacts, to help him build the Lincoln Hwy.
Fisher was also friends with
Thomas Edison
Orville and Wilbur Wright
Former U.S. Presidents:
Theodore Roosevelt
Warren G. Harding
Woodrow Wilson
Fisher regularly exchanged with:
Colonel Albert Pope of Columbia Manufacturing, who brought the first bicycles to America and went on to monopolize most of the bicycle industry
Eddie Rickenbacker, famed WWI fighter airplane ace

Fisher also had regular dealings with all the big name car and bike industry captains of his day including:
Henry Ford
Louis Chevrolet
Harry Stutz
Frederick and August Duisenberg, of Duisenberg Motor Works, the most luxurious and expensive car in the world
The Marmon Brothers, Howard and Walter of Marmon Motor Works

– Fisher’s estimated wealth in 1925 was $50,000,000. Fisher was such an astounding, self-made success that his estimated wealth in 2019 is in the billions at $7,261,069,364!

Born in Greensburg, IN on Jan 11, 1874, Fisher dropped out of school in the 6th grade. Known in many circles as the P.T. Barnum of the Automobile Age, he is not a household name because he wanted his actions to speak for themselves. All he wanted was results. From an early age, Carl knew if he gave to life, he would not have to worry about whether his own needs were attended to. Or as his mother once told his wife, Jane, “Carl was always so absorbed in the thing he was doing, he did not realize it was he who was doing it.” Later in life, those who worked to help publicize his efforts say he was hard to interview and even harder to photograph.

In fact, he was so uninterested in getting credit that as Jane explained, he regularly had to battle against people and organizations trying to name parts of his signature achievement, the Lincoln Hwy, even the whole highway, after him. Worldly honor was without meaning to Carl. Working, building, and dreaming were the only things he valued.

In 1886, when he was still very young, Carl’s mom, Ida, left his dad, an alcoholic lawyer, and moved the family 50 miles north to Indianapolis. The oldest of 3 brothers, he was so handicapped by severe astigmatism that he was half blind. He did not let the fact that his friends called him ‘Crip’ stop him, however, as he still rode the HiWheel bikes of the day.

From eight feet up, he couldn’t see potholes and had poor depth perception, so he was known as a fearless rider and frequent racer who crashed a lot. He also practiced tight rope walking and other stunts that placed him high above the ground, skills that would help him promote his bike and car dealerships later in life as we will show you.

At the age of 12, Fisher dropped out of school when the family moved to Indianapolis. He wanted to help provide for himself, his struggling mom, even his dad, who he supported ‘till he died. He lied about his age and took a job selling magazines, books, peanuts and candy on the commuter trains that serviced all throughout Indianapolis. When his customers slept at night, he read.

He studied “Think on These Things” by J. Krishnamurti, which stressed the importance of self knowledge. He also enjoyed biographies, with Abraham Lincoln and Napoleon Bonaparte being his favorites. He admired these men so much, that throughout his life, he had pictures of them hanging over his bed. Probably the person who had the greatest impact on him was Robert Ingersoll, the orator and former Illinois Attorney General who lived by the creed:

Happiness is the only good
The way to be happy is to make others so
The place to be happy is here
The time to be happy is NOW!

In business for himself, in addition to developing the people skills one cannot learn in a book, his mastery of the art of selling on trains also made him a great deal of money. So much so, in fact, he was able to afford one of the greatest luxuries of the day – a HiWheel bicycle.

He bought it from Henry T. Hearsey, who also sold the first equal sized wheel safeties in Indianapolis in 1889. Bikes the young and old could ride, they were twice the price of a horse and buggy! From his store first located at Delaware and New York and then from 118 Pennsylvania, he got two now celebrated bike names to help him sell his expensive conveyances. Marshall “Major” Taylor worked for him as did Carl Fisher.

14 years old, Taylor performed stunts and taught locals how to ride the all new equal sized wheel bikes. He did so while wearing a military uniform. It was from this that he earned the nickname “Major,” which stuck with him for the rest of his life.

It was this that would make a lasting impression on an also young Carl Fisher. Nor would it be long before he would demonstrate the value of showmanship himself in first selling bicycles, then cars.

Because it was restricted to HiWheel bikes, soon, in 1890, he joined the Zig Zag Bike Club. It was one of the approximately one hundred local bike clubs supporting groups from nearly every level of society. Diamond Chain founder, Arthur Newby, had formed it to ride the often muddy roads around Indianapolis as far as 40 and 50 miles away.

Since only the well heeled could afford Penny Farthings, Fisher soon found himself rubbing elbows with some of the most powerful men of the day. In a club that only lasted six years and grew to 200 affluent members, he formed many important and lasting relationships. In the bike club, he became friends with James Allison, Arthur Newby, the two Marmon Brothers, all noted above, as well as WWI Major General Robert Tyndall, who years later would go on to become, in 1943, the Mayor of Indianapolis.

At the tender ago of 17, in 1891, he bought himself a bike shop on Pennsylvania Street. He did so in a city of 105,000 people that was growing by leaps and bounds. At the time, Indianapolis was the beneficiary of the discovery of oil that was taking the northeastern part of the state by storm.

In the early 1880’s, the Indiana gas belt that had been discovered was the largest deposit of natural gas known to exist anywhere in the world. In the next decade, this area was also found to contain the biggest oil reserve on the planet, with an estimated one hundred million barrels of oil. Soon glass, rubber, iron and steel manufacturers, attracted by the cheap fuel that resulted, established factories in the towns 30-60 miles north of Indianapolis.

Because Indianapolis was where a lot of the money that was being made ended up being spent, Fisher’s store was in the middle of a lot of excitement. He was positioned perfectly in many ways. All the way up until just before World War I, two entire city blocks around Pennsylvania Street had become known as “bicycle alley.” Here bicycle enthusiasts congregated among the many manufacturers, outfitters and repair shops that were located here to talk shop, swap stories and plan routes.

He was also only one block from the colossal 284-foot tall Soldiers and Sailors Monument. It marks the centermost part of the city. A spectacular tourist draw it had been finished in 1888, only three years before Fisher’s shop opened.

Indiana historian John Barlow Martin, who maintains that Indianapolis was the best place to be during the Gay 90’s and first decade of the 1900’s, wrote:

“Here were the fine restaurants, the celebrated bars; here were the brawl and bustle of commerce and industry; here were the magnificent buildings constructed with little regard to cost; here were fashionable ladies and gentlemen some of them famous everywhere, riding around the circle in handsome carriages; here were literature, music, and art, and here sin beckoned from a narrow door way; in short, here was a farm boy’s new and shiny dream world”

To give you a feel for the level that the teenage Fisher was already operating at, in 2018 dollars, the $600 he paid for his bike facility would be equal to about $15,500 today. And the money he had saved came at a point in time when a ham and cheese sandwich could be had for a dime while he and his brothers were able to soon make 25 cents just to patch a tire.

But Carl could quickly see that there was more money to be made selling complete bikes. So, one of his first tasks was to get some inventory. Soon, he took the train to Columbus, OH, where he met with George C. Erland, one of the nation’s top bicycle manufacturers. Erland was so impressed with Fisher that he gave him not just a dozen bicycles on consignment, per his normal practice, but ten dozen or 120 bikes! Carl’s business prospered.

A little over a year passed before Fisher then traveled to Toledo, Ohio, 200 miles away on the shores of the Great Lakes to meet Colonel Albert Pope. In this day, Pope was the ruler king of bicycles. It was Pope, who in 1878, brought the first bicycles, the HiWheels, into America from England. It was also Pope who would go on to control the patent rights for virtually every bike that was sold in the USA. He also started the League of American Wheelmen, which at the time was an effective lobbying force for getting roads built for their first users: cyclists.

Pope was an extremely powerful man. And the 19 year old Fisher had to wait five days before Pope made himself available to meet with him. So, when Fisher got before him with a request for a boxcar of bikes (250) at cost and not a dozen, it points to how confident young Carl Fisher was in his abilities to make any promotion scheme he had in mind a reality. His approach was so startling to the already much accomplished, almost 60-year old Pope, that he asked for some time to think about what the kid from Indianapolis was proposing.

When two days later, Pope finally said yes, Fisher got to work. He contacted his friend George Bumbaugh and asked him to make 1000 toy balloons that he could fly over Indianapolis. In 50 of them, he would put a certificate for a free bike, a safety with equal size wheels, each of which would be worth about $3000 in today’s dollars. He then got a banker to loan him $500 (roughly $13,000 today) so he could take out newspaper ads announcing the event he had planned.

On the appointed day, the balloons were released over Indianapolis, set to land wherever the wind took them. They flew far and near and the newspapers of the day all covered it, giving Fisher’s shop national attention. In a separate ceremony even more publicity was achieved, when the Mayor of Indianapolis and other luminaries presented the bikes to those with certificates. Soon, Carl had become a regional celebrity and he and his two mechanics, his two brothers, had the most talked about bike shop in the state.

Always looking for ways to promote, he and his brothers built a 9-foot tall HiWheel bicycle. Carl even rode around the city on what was once billed as “the largest bike in the world,” a 20-foot tall pedal machine that the three Fishers had constructed. If that was not enough, Carl even strung a tight rope across Washington Street, where the Cultural Trail is now, donned a padded suit and rode a bicycle across it. His safety net for this trick were the ropes strapped to his handlebars that two men held from the building he rode to.

He even took out ads in the newspapers for a stunt the local police tried to shut down. He told the local citizenry that he would throw a bike off of one of the tall downtown buildings and who ever found it, would get a new one at his shop. The way the story is told, despite the fact that ten police officers had been strategically positioned to prevent this from happening at the planned time, a bike came crashing down to the street. Cheers rang out as crowds scrambled to claim it.

“Crazy Carl,” as he had come to be known locally, turned himself in, but he was not charged with a crime as his was a love/hate relationship with the local constables of the peace. His antics reinforced his status as a local celebrity and folk hero. Soon, it became cool to say you bought a bicycle from Carl Fisher and his fame grew and grew.

By mid 1890’s, Indianapolis was filled with bikes. And Fisher, whose shop was largely responsible for this, was, at age 20, a self supporting and well respected businessman.

His shop was also the regional center for the powerful League of American Wheelmen. To entice the League of American Wheelmen Meet, the Super Bowl of its day, to come to Indianapolis, he convinced his successful business friend, Arthur Newby to build a velodrome in town. Newby had already, in 1890, opened the successful Indianapolis Chain & Stamping Co that mass produced chains for bicycles. His company would in time become the Diamond Chain that we talk about earlier in this book.

After crunching the numbers, Newby saw that such a bike racing track made good business sense, So, in 1898, he built the Newby Oval. It was one of the best in the country and cost $23,000 ($634K today) to construct. A quarter-mile, white-pine board velodrome, it was electrically lighted and had covered grandstands that could accommodate 8,000 spectators — though they were rarely filled to capacity.

Located at Central Avenue and 30th Street, it was all torn down after only four years. A sign of the times, bicycle racing had begun to wane as the automobile began to capture people’s imagination. As much as Newby tried with the addition of other events such as vaudeville, football, conventions and high school track and field, his velodrome group could not turn a profit.

Carl saw the demise of the velodrome as a turn signal. Just as he was swept up in the bicycle craze of the Gay ‘90’s, when cars started to become a reality at the start of the next century, he positioned himself at the front of that wave. It wasn’t long before he made the switch, he had told Oldefield, a top bike racer at the time, “I don’t see why the automobile can’t be made to do everything the bicycle has done.” Soon after he purchased one, Fisher converted his bicycle shop into an automobile repair/sales facility.

Or as Donald Davidson, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway historian, wrote: “Naturally, he procured the first gasoline-powered vehicle in Indianapolis — a motor tricycle. He drove it around town, and everyone thought he was a nutcase. It would scare all the horses. Then he put those vehicles in his bicycle shop for sale.”

As the first car in the entire state of Indiana, and one of the first 15 in the United States, Fisher’s vehicle was a three-wheeled French DeDion Bouton. As soon as he purchased it, he then went on to also became one of America’s first long distance car travelers when in 1900, he drove it home. The distance from Madison Square Garden in New York City where be bought it to Indianapolis was 700 miles, a mammoth journey at the turn of the last century. He did so in a vehicle with all of 2.5 horsepower that cost him more than what he paid for his entire bike shop – $650!

Fisher entered the business of selling automobiles with Oldfield. By this time, the two of them were now racing cars, and since there were no speed limits on the roads, Fisher with poor eyes observed none. Soon, he became a fearless racer with a national reputation.

In 1901, he toured the Midwest with Oldefield and two other speedsters. They did exhibitions that included races against horses and the clock. They also charged people who wanted to go for fast rides. For the year, Fisher ended up taking in $20,000 ($500,000 today) for his efforts.

In 1902, he did racing exhibitions once again in the Midwest. Joining him and Oldefield during that year was Louis Chevrolet. By this time, automobiles were becoming more common. In fact, records show that 200 of them were being made a week.

The next year, on June 20, 1903, at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, in Indianapolis, Oldfield became the first to speed through a one-mile track in one minute or 60 miles per hour. He did so in a Ford 999, making both himself and Ford household names. Oldefield went on to pursue a long and celebrated career as a car racing name synonymous with speed.

Fisher’s racing adventures ended the next year, however, when an elderly man named Percy Avery walked into his car dealership, by now on Illinois Street (now, like his first bike shop, a parking garage). Avery offered him a partnership in the comosed acetylene gas lighting system he had developed. As an energy source used to illuminate buoys and lighthouses, the explosiveness of the fuel was not as a big of a concern when buffered by large bodies of water. But using it on automobiles that operated in close proximity to other vehicles, people and buildings, made it seem risky at best. However, when James Allison threw one of Avery’s brightly burning lights off of the Washington Street Bridge and it didn’t explode on the rocks below, he knew he and Fisher had to go into business with Avery.

When Fisher then put them on the fenders of a 1904 Packard, he altered the course of history. Autos began running at night, and over the next ten years it was Fisher’s firm that supplied nearly every headlamp used on a motor vehicle. Along the way, he became friends with all the great auto magnates of the day. He and Allison built plants all over the country to keep up with the demand. So after Avery left the company in 1906, Fisher and Allison both went on to became millionaires.

As they worked their company, however, there were setbacks. As one of the largest employers in Indianapolis, their 90,000 square feet factory at 211 East South Street exploded in 1907. When, as a result, the city passed an ordinance forbidding the filling of the gas canisters within city limits, Fisher rebuilt at the city’s edge. Despite the city’s push for safety, 17 Presto-O-Lite workers died when the concrete in their new building froze causing it to collapse. Later, in 1912 Fisher and his group built a giant new plant, three times as large, in the same area, now called Speedway, where, in 1909, he had built the Indy 500 Motor Speedway.

With factories all across the United Sates, and on both coasts, Fisher did a lot of traveling. Since 15 of these production facilities had exploded killing dozens of people, he often found himself busy testifying at all of the lawsuits that resulted.

Fisher and Allison’s car headlight company also pioneered another cutting edge feature. Overnight Delivery! They became a national sensation when customers as far as 200 miles away received refilled cylinders the next morning for orders they had placed the day before.

In the end, in 1913, they sold Presto-O-Lite for nine million dollars (equal to $269 million in 2022) to Union Carbide. To put that into perspective, that was when a postage stamp and a pound of coffee cost 5 cents.

While they were busy making their Presto-O-Lite pot of gold, Fisher was consumed with a plethora of other car related activities. Having turned to automobile sales as the 1900’s began, as we have said, when he moved that activity out of his Pennsylvania Street bike shop, first to 330 Illinois Street, a few blocks away, then, in 1908, to the entire 400 block of Capital Ave, he started a movement. Over the next decade, following his lead, many other car businesses piled in to claim the 9-block neighborhood of homes that once occupied both sides of the street north of Fisher’s new car dealership.

Here are some of the cars (not a compete list) that were made in Indianapolis during Fisher’s time:

Alena Steam | American| Anahuac | Atlas Motor Buggy | Automotive Syndicate | Best | Barth-Keith | Black Brook | Capital | Central | Co-Auto | Cole | Colonial Six | Comet | Craig | Hunt | Cross | Cyclop | Cyclops | DaVinci | De Freet | Duesenberg | Electro | Electrobile | Elgin | Empire | Cyclecar | Ford | Frontenac | Gale Four | Hassler | Henderson | Herff-Brooks | Hoosier Scout | Hunter | Ideal | Indiana | Lafayette | Lindsay | Liquid Air | Lyons-Knight | Marathon | Marion | Marmon | McGill | | McLellen | Merz | Mohawk | Monroe | National | Nesom | New Parry | Overlan | Pan | Parry | Pathfinder | Peters | Pope-Waverley | Premier | Prowler Prototype | Rex | Schebler | Sears Steam | Smart | Spacke | Star | State | Strattan | Streamline | Stutz | Tone | Tricolet | Turner | Vaughn | Vixen | Waverley | Wizard

Exactly specifying which ones took up residence along Capitol Avenue in what came to be called Auto Row, north of Fisher, would be an exhaustive study outside the scope of this book. Do however suffice it to say that Fisher Automobile Company was the genesis of the first Auto Row, the first stable of businesses to run along one road for a few blocks, that sold cars or car related products and services anywhere in the world. In the case of Indianapolis, this was so for well over half a mile! There were auto dealerships, auto and auto parts manufacturers, auto parts suppliers and tire and upholstery providers, even an auto tech school, etc.

Today, the mammoth Stutz Motor Car factory, which at four stories, takes up two entire blocks, still stands six blocks north of Fisher’s old business. Known today as the Stutz Business & Arts Center, it serves a smorgasbord of many different small to mid-sized businesses.

Another building that has kept its original Auto Row architecture intact is the Goodyear Tire and Rubber store that was built in 1913. Now the Zesco restaurant supply building, at four stores tall, it is the handsome red brick structure you see when you come out of the Indy Canal on the Cultural Trail. The alley behind Zesco takes you two easy bicycle blocks away to the front door of Kroger’s supermarket, where the Fisher Automobile Co. once stood.

Across Michigan Street, from Fisher’s old dealership, is BloodPlasma Indianapolis. Once the Cadillac Co. of Indiana/Automobile College, Cadillacs were sold on the bottom floor and on the second, was the first technical school related to autos in the country. Other buildings that have stood the test of time are the William Small Co. at 602 Capitol, where the Chevrolet brothers got their start. There are maybe a couple dozen other structures that have been given facelifts, or that time, parking lots and “progress” have hidden, but there remains a magic in the air from when this was the most celebrated and significant Auto Row in the Nation.

The Kroger’s supermarket complex, where Fisher’s 400 N. Capitol Avenue location once stood, however, is signaling the next wave. Densified with housing, it is now five stories tall, instead of three. And in addition to the grocery store, which only makes up a small part of the complex, now indoor parking and trendy apartments surround a massive lawn carpeted courtyard not visible from the street.

As building after building along Auto Row gets renovated to provide housing for hundreds of people, there are very few who know it was Fisher’s huge car dealership that once held sway over this notable part of town. From what is now seen as the Michigan & Senate Street Krogers he displayed many different makes of automobiles. Complete with an elevator large enough to move motor vehicles inside of it, he sold: National, Overland, Packard, REO, Stoddard-Dayton, and Baker Electric.

As he worked there, usually 18 hrs a day, he also did huge promotions, launched the Indy 500 Speedway and then the Lincoln Hwy. To help him make any initiative he planned a success, he always had enthusiastic support from his staff. The reason his employees worked so hard for him was because he took a genuine interest in each of them.

One of his first orders of business at 400 N. Capitol, was to get his new location publicized. Once again, he devised a balloon stunt as he again turned to his airship friend George Bumbaugh. Only this time instead of toy balloons, some with certificates for a free bike, by now licensed himself as one of America’s first balloon pilots, he would fly a whole car over the city of Indianapolis.

As the huge sign on the balloon would infer, the automobile he would tow would be the latest 1909 model of the Stoddard-Dayton. By the time October 30, 1908 had come and gone, Fisher’s spectacular stunt had wowed an entire city and earned him and his showroom national recognition. This, despite the fact that the 5,000 people who sent him off from the edge of town, near Fall Creek, would never know he had pulled the heavy engine from the vehicle to make it easier for the inflated device to haul it. Nor that his triumphant drive back into town was in the Stoddard-Dayton his brother had brought out to him when he landed.

Besides running the Fisher Automobile Co. and Presto-O-Lite, he also led the charge that got the Indy 500 Motor Speedway built. There were several reasons he felt called to do so.

Having seen all the excitement that Oldefield created for cars and Ford Motor Co., in particular, when in 1903 he became the first to go 60 mph in one, Fisher knew a speed oval where racers could show what certain cars could do would help him sell them. He was also aware that European automobiles were better because they had race tracks to experiment on. From his own short racing career on public roads, where many spectators and drivers had been killed, he was also concerned about safety.

With the above in mind, Fisher formed the Indianapolis Motor Association, to help him stage a major racing meet in 1906 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds on what is now 30th Street. It was there that Oldefield had become the first to break the “mile a minute” barrier. Races continued on the dirt track at the fairgrounds until 1909 when Fisher, with fellow local investors James Allison, Frank Wheeler, a carburetor manufacturer, and Arthur Newby bought 320 acres of farmland five miles from downtown.

Years earlier, Fisher had gotten to know these men when they were all in the Zig-Zag Bicycle Club together. All with hugely successful businesses, he needed their help to offset the $3 million price tag to build the 2.5-mile race track he foresaw. Fisher also wanted to have it built in four month’s time so the prestigious Federation of American Motorcyclists Meet could race there instead of the Fairgrounds.

In a frantic race against the clock, the grandstands and 41 buildings, including garages and machine shops, all had to be constructed. There were also the 3,000 hitching posts that would be needed for the fans arriving by horse. 90,000 cubic yards of stone from 18 different suppliers also all had to be smoothed by 450 men, 300 mules, four, 6-ton rollers and three 10-ton rollers; in a job that soon became an around the clock frenzy as the race date neared. But it was all completed on time.

The length of the course was set at 2.5 miles so 200 laps, or 500 miles in one race made for a day of racing. From a point in time when it used to take almost seven hours to go that distance, modern Indy 500 racers now roar through the course in under three hours!

To promote the new raceway, Fisher yet again turned to balloons. Starting on June 5th, in a “race” that lasted two days, Fisher and eight other balloonists, in airships all over 50 feet in diameter left the speedway infield. While there was controversy over who traveled the furthest without touching the ground first, 350 miles later a winner, and not Fisher, was declared.

By the time the weekend of August 13-14 rolled around, the race track was ready for the motorcycles. To call attention to their upcoming event, 200 of them all gathered for a photo at the impressive Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the center of town. Even today, Monument Circle, as it also called, is a popular gathering spot for motorcycles as a few summer nights can find hundreds of them parked everywhere one looks.

When the two-wheel machines hit the track the next day they became its first racers, although underwhelmingly so. On a surface that was so rough it popped a few of the racers’ tires, no records were set and some competitors even sat out a few of the events out of fear for their own safety.

When the track finally officially opened for the Labor Day weekend, a week later, on Aug. 19, 1909, it was a disaster. The surface broke up and two crashes resulted in the deaths of one driver, two mechanics and two spectators. Ultimately, the race was called off after 235 of the scheduled 300 miles.

Fisher and his group resolved to atone for their disastrous beginnings. In the Fall of 1909, over a period of 63 days they rebuilt with bricks which were twice as expensive as concrete. In fact, the 3.2 million bricks they used were so substantial that, each one weighed about 9 and 1/2 pounds.

The Brickyard, as it came to be called, held up for almost 30 years until 1938, when the entire track, except for a few small sections, was paved with asphalt. Now, all that is left of the original bricks is a 36-inch strip at the start/finish line. But it is still one of the premiere auto raceways in all the world as well as home to the Indy 500, the largest spectator event on the planet.

Fisher went on to build the Dixie Hwy that connected Indianapolis to Miami, where across the Biscayne Bay, he built hotels and tirelessly promoted the island city of Miami Beach. Recognized as the chief architect of that vacation metropolis, after a brief foray building the resort community of Montauk, NY, he spent his final years in his adopted Florida city, where he died of sclerosis of the liver on July 15, 1939.

Fisher’s organ failure, the result of years of carousing, and promoting, all of which he did at full tilt, ended his life at age 65. He took his last breath in St. Francis Hospital, the world class healing facility he had built. Ironically, the man he built it with, James Allison, the Presto-O-Lite business partner he had made millions with, died there twelve years earlier.

Before he moved his irrepressible energy to Florida, not only did Carl G. Fisher transform the city of Indianapolis, its industry, its buildings and its transportation, etc., his was the spark that also set an entire nation on fire with his vision of a coast-to-coast road. Fisher’s signature achievement, the Lincoln Hwy, was the first road across an entire continent. Its impact was so huge, we have given it the whole next chapter.

“He was all speed. I don’t believe he ever thought in terms of money. He made millions, but
they were incidental. He often said,
“I just like to see the dirt fly.”
Jane Fisher,
Fabulous Hoosier, 1947

 

Other posts about Indianapolis history Martin Krieg created as he wrote “How Indianapolis Built America” are at this link HERE