1911 Nance.

So help me, I like the early history of the automobile.  There was seemingly infinite optimism and ambition and more than that, just so much going on. I thought it would be fun, at least for me, to take a single day a century ago as a snapshot. Then as now, it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I thought that a holiday weekend wouldn’t have that much to offer, a dozen notes on the industry, maybe. Easy peasy.

Not even close. It’s impossible to overstate just how much was happening. There were, what, 30 or 40 major makes? And who knows how many small manufacturers, racing everywhere, hundreds of clubs, unions, dealers, garages, tours.  It would, in fact, be too much to list – someday, someone may want to know when F. S. Gassaway was transferred from the New York branch office of the Willard Storage Battery Co. to the main office at Cleveland, but they’re going to have to figure that out for themselves.

Maybe it’s only interesting to me, but this is how we got where we are today, and we forget Coggswell at our peril.

  • Under the auspices of the New York Automobile Trade Association, a two-day Endurance Run around New York, New Jersey and Connecticut began.


White Steamer, National, REO, Stearns, Stoddard-Dayton, Maxwell, Columbia, two Pullmans, Matheson and others line up for the Endurance Run on November 28.

  • Charles Yale Knight arrived in New York aboard the Mauritania.
  • The Cotta Transmission Company, of Rockford, Illinois, maker of the “Cotta Transmission,” announced they had reorganized and resumed operation under new management
  • Dr. Charles G. Percival and Montague Roberts’ 100,000-mile Abbot-Detroit trip stopped in Boston (mile 17,000), met with Mayor Fitzgerald, and headed for Maine.
  • Croxton-Keeton took over New York sales of Parry, and their 1662 Broadway showroom.
  • Italian engineer Carmine Basile formed the Basile Automobile Company in Boston to market his inventions.
  • Coggswell Motor Car Company of Grand Rapids announced their first model, the OHV, slant-four 1911 Coggswell 35. Series production was not achieved.
  • Potter & Johnston Company, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island,  and Grant & Woods of Chelsea, Michigan, announced their consolidation into the largest automatic machinery company in the world.
  • E-M-F General Manager David Hunt, Jr., was killed in a car accident in Yale, Michigan.
  • A world-circling Hupmobile left Denver, Colorado, for points west.
  • Ray F. McNamara’s transcontinental Premier finally reached Los Angeles after a series of extraordinary misfortunes.
  • Philadelphia’s Nance announced their new 35hp, $1,900 six-cylinder automobile.
  • W.W. Ker lectured on gasoline automobiles at Lafayette Hall, Alexandria Avenue and 137th Street, New York.
  • The first annual Chalmers dealers convention convened in Detroit. More than 225 people attended.


Chalmers dealers, salesmen and guests at their banquet, 1910.

  • The Chevalier G. Agnelle, the head of the Fabbrica Italiana Automobil Torino, Turin, Italy, gave a dinner to the New York officers of the company at Martin’s.
  • Day two of the two-day meet at the Los Angeles one-mile board track was dominated by Joe Nikrent in his Knox (as had day one). James Fouch’s Staver also did well, helping convince Nikrent to race a Staver in 1911.
  • Three hundred automobiles gathered in Hiawatha, Kansas, for a jackrabbit hunt.
  • The highest temperature on A.L. Westgard”s transcontinental route was measured, 106 degrees at Mecca, California.
  • Omaha Automobile Dealers’ Show Association announced an extensive lineup for their February, 1911, show. Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Oakland, St. Louis, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., Syracuse, Hartford, Connecticut, and Chicago also announced their shows.
  • Sheffield Car Company debuted their 30hp railroad automobile, a replacement for the velocipede.


Sheffield railroad automobile.

  • Angeleno Harry Seymour on a Reading Standard (motorcycle) lowered the track record at Newark’s Olympic Park to 1:10.
  • At its annual meeting in Philadelphia, the North Wildwood Automobile Club decided to continue racing and to extend their three-mile beach track to five, completely encircling the island.
  • The Chauffeurs, Automobile Drivers and Automobile Workers’ Association of Syracuse was formed.
  • The automobile clubs of Richmond and Newport News, Virginia, showed their plan for a road to connect the two cities, and planned to begin construction in the spring.