Collection #

P 0438

indiana–Pacific i.a.m.a. tour
photographs, 1913

Collection Information

Historical Sketch

Scope and Content Note

Contents

Cataloging Information

Processed by

Barbara Quigley
2 August 2004

Manuscript and Visual Collections Department
William Henry Smith Memorial Library
Indiana Historical Society
450 West Ohio Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202-3269

www.indianahistory.org

COLLECTION INFORMATION

VOLUME OF COLLECTION:	1 folder
COLLECTION DATES:	1913
PROVENANCE:	Purchased from Robert H. Snyder Graphics, Yonkers, NY, in September 1995
RESTRICTIONS:	None
COPYRIGHT:
REPRODUCTION RIGHTS:	Permission to reproduce or publish material in this collection must be obtained from the Indiana Historical Society.
ALTERNATE FORMATS:
RELATED HOLDINGS:
ACCESSION NUMBER:	1995.0805
NOTES:

historiCAL SKETCH

At 2:00 p.m. on 1 July 1913, crowds gathered in Indianapolis for the departure of the Indiana–Pacific Indiana Automobile Manufacturers Association (I.A.M.A.) tour.  Seventeen cars representing every automobile manufacturer in Indiana participated in this trail-blazing expedition.  They included a Marmon, two Marions, a Pilot “60,” two Haynes, two Americans, a McFarland, two Appersons, two Hendersons, an Empire, a Pathfinder “40,” and two Premiers.  Two trucks went along to carry extra equipment; one carried an entire load of spare tires.   

On 1 September 1912, Carl G. Fisher, businessman and co-creator of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, had held a dinner meeting with many of his automobile industry friends in Das Deutsche Haus in Indianapolis to promote his vision of a transcontinental highway.  He began organizing the effort that eventually led to the building of the Lincoln Highway (which was parallel to today’s Interstate 80).  The Lincoln Highway Association was organized and held its first meeting in Detroit on 1 July 1913, the same day that the I.A.M.A. tour set off from Indianapolis for the Pacific coast.

The tour was actually cosponsored by the I.A.M.A. and the Hoosier Motor Club, of which Fisher was a director.  The trip is sometimes referred to as the Hoosier Tour or the Trail-Blazer Tour.  The tour was organized to stimulate public interest in a transcontinental road.  There had been previous cross-country trips, and as they continued, more and more automobile manufacturers became sponsors for the opportunity to test and promote their products.  (It was felt that after the 1913 tour, the purposes for having such tours had been fulfilled, and this activity ceased.)

The Indiana–Pacific tour was well publicized, bringing hundreds of requests from western cities and towns for the cavalcade to pass through their areas.  Price, Utah, built a road especially for the occasion.  Fisher, who went on the trip, worried that many would assume that the route taken would be the eventual route of the Lincoln Highway, even though he had emphasized that the highway’s route would be determined after careful consideration of all the facts.  (In the end, even Indianapolis was not on the highway, which crossed Indiana about 130 miles north of the city.) 

The men selected for the tour were carefully chosen.  They included experienced cross-country drivers, such as W.D. Edenburn and John Guy Monihan, and Speedway racers, such as Ray Harroun.  Invited to go along on the tour were representatives from telegraph companies, a photographer, an observer from the Royal Automobile Club of England, a field representative from the American Automobile Association, and reporters from the Hearst syndicate, Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis News, and the Chicago Tribune.  Each participant had to pass a physical examination before they were accepted for the trip because of some of the altitudes and rugged terrain that would be encountered.

Required equipment for each car on the trip included a pick or mattock, a pair of tackle blocks, six hundred feet of three-quarter-inch rope, a barn lantern to be hung on the rear tire carrier in case the car’s regular lights failed, a steel stake three feet long to use as an anchor to pull the car out of sand or mud, twelve mudhooks, a full set of chains, a sledge, chocolate bars in cans, and beans and other canned food.  West of Salt Lake City each car also carried four African water bags filled at all times, and a 4’x6’ tent.

By the beginning of the trip, the tour had already sparked $500,000 in road improvements.  More than thirty new concrete bridges were built along the route, some of which had already been planned, but whose construction was speeded up for the tour.

The goal for the trip had been set at 150 miles per day.  This goal was often not accomplished, not because of bad weather or road conditions, but because of the enthusiastic crowds that greeted the tour in every town that thought it had a chance of being on the proposed Lincoln Highway.  Nearly every community along the route provided them with banquets, roadside entertainment, or some other type of celebration.  Sometimes free gasoline was provided.  More than 1,200 cars escorted the tour into Oakland, California.

On 3 August, the thirty-fourth day of the tour, the I.A.M.A. cars rolled into San Francisco.  Market Street was lined with flags and thousands of cheering people.  Every vehicle had completed the tour, and there had been no casualties.  The tour had never been more than twenty-four hours behind schedule.  America had seen that transcontinental automobile travel was feasible. 

The members of the tour returned to Indianapolis by train.

Sources:

Fisher, Jane.  Fabulous Hoosier:  A Story of American Achievement. New York:  Robert M. McBride & Company, 1947.  General Collection:  F534 .I55 F5 1947

Fisher, Jerry M.  The Pacesetter:  The Untold Story of Carl G. Fisher. Fort Bragg, Calif.:  Lost Coast Press, 1998.  General Collection:  CT275 .F559 F53 1998

Greiff, Glory-June.  “Fisher, Carl Graham.”  In The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, edited by Bodenhamer, David J. and Robert G. Barrows. Bloomington and Indianapolis:  Indiana University Press, 1994:  572-73.    General Collection:  F534 .I55 E4 1994

Howell, Alice Shaneyfelt.  “The Lincoln Highway” (http://bchs.kearney.net/BTales_198306.htm). From Buffalo Tales 6(6), June 1983, a newsletter of the Buffalo County Historical Society, Kearney, Nebraska. Accessed 1 July 2004.

Lincoln Highway National Museum and Archives. “1913 Indiana Hoosier Tour” (http://www.midwestisp.com/Indiana/Indiana-index.html). Accessed 1 July 2004.

Stucker, Dave.  “AAA and the Glidden Connection” (http://www.vmcca.org/bh/aaa.html). Accessed 1 July 2004.

Weingroff, Richard F.  “The Lincoln Highway”    (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/lincoln.htm). From the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration. Accessed 1 July 2004.

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

This collection consists of nineteen black-and-white photographs printed on five sheets of photographic paper mounted on linen album pages.  There are four images on each page, except for one sheet that has just three because one picture has been cut out.

The photographs were taken in 1913, and are of the Indiana–Pacific Indiana Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (I.A.M.A.) tour from Indianapolis to San Francisco.  The photographs show cars, especially a Pilot “60,” in various locations along the route.  People in the photos are not identified.  Locations include Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California.  Most of the photos have a brief caption written on them.

CONTENTS

CONTENTS	CONTAINER
Men posing with car by University Park in Indianapolis (Benjamin Harrison statue in background), with caption:  “Pilot ‘60’ – this car was finished at 2 a.m. the day before and had only been driven 123 miles before starting on trip” (#77307).	Photographs, Folder 1
Men posing with car, with caption:  “Pilot 60 at Salt Lake City, in front of Brigham Young Statue” (#77582).	Photographs, Folder 1
Men, women, and a baby in the Pilot “60,” with caption:  “Finish at San Francisco.”	Photographs, Folder 1
Crowds gathered by cars, with caption:  “In at the finish first class condition” (#77824).	Photographs, Folder 1
Men and car in Utah, with caption:  “Pilot ‘60’ in the lead from Kearneys Ranch, one of worst roads” (#77631).	Photographs, Folder 1
Seven cars traveling on a road, with caption:  “Berthand Pass – Rockey (sic) Mountains” (#77552).	Photographs, Folder 1
Car and men in mountainous area, with caption:  “Pilot ‘60’ climbing 26% grade only 3 cars could do it on their own power.  Road very shaley.”	Photographs, Folder 1
Several cars in mountainous area, with caption:  “Climbing the Rockeys (sic) highest elevation” (#77571).	Photographs, Folder 1
Men in Pilot car with Nevada/Utah sign in background, with caption:  “In the desert” (#77789).	Photographs, Folder 1
Cars with mountains in the background, with caption:  “Hot Springs near Carson City, Nev.” (#77772).	Photographs, Folder 1
Crowds gathered by cars, with caption:  “Tonopah, Nev.”	Photographs, Folder 1
Crowds gathered by cars, with palm trees and court house in background, with caption:  “Court House Stocton (sic), Cal.”	Photographs, Folder 1
Men in Pilot car, with caption:  “Paso Robles, Cal.”	Photographs, Folder 1
Eight men with Pilot car, mountains in background (#77705).	Photographs, Folder 1
Street scene with cars lined up, Evening Telegraph building, hotel, and streetcar in background (#77509).	Photographs, Folder 1
Cars lined up in front of Scottish Rite Temple, with caption:  “In front of Masonic Tempee (sic) – Denver, Col.” (#77861).	Photographs, Folder 1
Car climbing hill, with caption:  “Bad hill – Colorado Springs, Col.” (#77480).	Photographs, Folder 1
Cars on bridge by dam in mountainous area, with caption:  “Grand Canon (sic) near Glenwood Springs, Col.” (#78024).	Photographs, Folder 1
Men in car on wet muddy road, with caption:  “Pilot ‘60’ on Nevada desert after a rain.  Very dangerous on account of ‘washouts.’” (#77795).	Photographs, Folder 1

CATALOGING INFORMATION

For additional information on this collection, including a list of subject headings that may lead you to related materials:

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