The automotive revolution did not take place in Detroit, Not in Akron,
but in the work shops and factories of Indianapolis                                                                                                The Car is Born
                                                                Bill Shaw 2003

 

There  is nothing that has had a greater impact on civilization and the landscape of the world than the private automobile. But where did it come from? What does the car bring to mind in terms of a birthplace?

You may be thinking that since Henry Ford built his first autos in Detroit, also known as Motor City, that that is where it all began. You would find yourself in good company because that is a commonly shared misperception. A small bit of digging, however, will reveal for you that the early motor car industry began where all its first innovations were concocted, where it burned the hottest – in Indianapolis! 

 

 

When Carl Fisher drove one of the first 15 cars in America from Madison Square Garden in New York to Indianapolis in 1900, he planted the seed for the next craze that would sweep his city and soon the rest of the Nation. In shifting his attention from the bicycles he had filled the city with, he then made the automobile all the rage in his trend setting population center. 

 

 

 

 

By 1908, he started what would go on to become the Nation’s first Auto Row when he built the first car dealership in the world, a three-story building that covered an entire city block. Soon he led the charge in 1909 that got the industry’s first test track, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, built. It was from there that almost every new feature on the cars of yesteryear was given its first trial run. Because of its extremely high quality, this, the indisputable proving ground of the day, caused car making factories to spring up all around Indianapolis so they could take advantage of it.

With all the first automobile manufacturers locating here so they could test their wares, by the 1920’s, Indianapolis was known as the center of the automobile industry. This widely accepted notion was borne out by the fact that seven blocks of car related businesses north of Fisher Auto was the four-story Stutz Motorcar factory (which still stands today as the Stutz Bus22iness Center). With the help of investors like Charles Schwab, Stutz occupied two entire city blocks, and was always in the news for its cutting edge advances. It developed, for example, the 8-cylinder engine, the overhead cam, many safety features and cars that consistently won races, not just in Indianapolis, but all over the world.

 

Soon, you will learn how the ever dynamic Carl Fisher used the marketing wizardry he had developed in the world of pedal power to make the car the ruler king it long has been. With Fisher in the lead, the 97 different motor vehicle manufacturers and the industries that supported them, pioneered almost every new advance in the car world of yesteryear.

One such breakthrough was the car headlight. And it was through his company, Presto-O-Lite, that Carl Fisher got them on to virtually ever motor vehicle made  in the first few decades of the 20th Century.

As the Crossroads of America where half of the nation is now within an 8-hour car drive, it was also Fisher who gave purpose to long distance driving. It was he who got an entire nation to help him build the first road across an entire continent. The Lincoln Highway, originated in, and developed from Indianapolis, was the first arterial to travel from the Eastern Seaboard to the Pacific Ocean, all the way across America.

It also won’t be long in the words ahead, before I tell you about what was needed before cars could even exist and then enjoy the roads that would bring the Western frontier into the 20th century, For this, one still flourishing Indianapolis company (which moved to Illinois Fall, 2022) was able to capitalize on two important inventions, the roller chain it produced that was made possible by steel.

It is here that we will touch on Charles Bessemer. In Pittsburgh, PA, in 1855, it was Bessemer who figured out how to turn iron ore into steel. His earthshaking breakthrough made it possible to turn thick globs of metal into sheets that could be made thinner and thinner. In figuring out how to blow the carbon out of pig iron, Bessemer’s innovation not only caused a whole new level of manufacturing to emerge but it made the bicycle and motorized transportation possible.

Before motors were built using steel, as a result of Bessemer’s work, among all its limitless possibilities, steel could be pressed into the rolls of tubing needed for bicycle frames. It could also be formed to make handlebars, sprockets, rims, axles and wheels, etc. Steel also made chain possible. And we’ll show you the Indianapolis company, Diamond Chain, that was the first to make it affordable and readily available by mass producing it. You will see how in doing so, it made vast armies of the first bicycles with equal size wheels possible.

Later its chain became the workhorse pretty much every machine makes use of today. It was also Diamond Chain that made the Wright Brothers first flight possible as well as most all of the early day cars (all car engines, even today, rely on chain and to a lesser degree, timing belts, to open and close the valves needed for combustion) and the assembly line they rolled off of.

 

Nor, as you will learn, was it any coincidence that Arthur Newby, one of the founders of Diamond Chain, was also partners with one of the most important men to roam the earth plane when they built the Indy 500 Motor Speedway with two others. A name talked about above but forgotten by history, Carl Fisher’s life was so huge, you will get to learn more about him and his impact on Indianapolis and the world, in the long chapter his life and accomplishments warranted.

When you see the parts Indianapolis played in shaping how and where we move about, you will understand why we will be capitalizing on a new momentum that has been set here. When the Circle City gave cyclists in its inner core easy access to its sights and places to eat, sleep, shop and recreate with its 8 (and soon 10) mile long Cultural Trail, it revitalized the once dying Rust Belt city it had become. It also made Indianapolis the bike friendliest downtown in America. We will be using this internationally celebrated bikeway, what has become America’s First Downtown Greenway, as a template for the string of Downtown Greenways that will hold the National Bicycle Greenway together.

Once our other 19 NBG Anchor cities (that connect San Francisco to Washington, DC) help us get their own Downtown Greenways up and running as a way to show themselves off, a nationwide push will begin to safely connect cyclists to them. From east to west along our Greenway, and north to south, and from other points all over America, a new road building frenzy will begin as roads are retrofitted and greenways are constructed to reach these all new centers of fun and brotherhood.

By the time you have finished this book, you will understand why an Indianapolis based NBG is the next step in the evolutionary progression of coast to coast travel. It will become evident to you how, in coming full circle, Indianapolis will set the lead in rebuilding the Nation’s now broken road system it gave birth to.

From “How Indianapolis Built America and How it will Rebuild it with the National Bicycle Greenway“

Note: In coming from San Francisco/Oakland, consistent with the full circle direction Indianapolis is moving in, I have also been on a long journey back to my roots. As the Director of the National Bicycle Greenway, my grandfather was born in Indianapolis in 1886 and my great grandfather and great grandmother were born here in 1859