Finding automotive history without leaving home
I’m not from Michigan or Indiana, so old-car enthusiasts don’t feel any strong connection to my home state.
Mentioning that I’m from Mississippi doesn’t conjure sepia-toned images of industrial buildings in the ’Teens and ’20s pumping out millions of automobiles over three shifts a day while the world cries “More! More!” In fact, according to the Standard Catalog of American Cars: 1805-1942, there were but four attempts to put the Magnolia State on wheels. Of the 48 pre-war U.S. states, only Idaho (one entry), New Mexico (one), and Wyoming (two) tried less to get in the game.
The most intriguing of Mississippi’s efforts – at least, to me, anyway – was the Aberdeen Automobile Co. Aberdeen is the county seat of Monroe, which is also home to the town of Amory, where I was born and raised. Five men organized the company in 1909, but no cars were produced. One of those men was J.W. Bowling, to whom I am almost certainly related since “my people” settled about 70 miles northwest of Aberdeen.
Other attempts fared only slightly better. Hattiesburg hosted the Southeastern Automobile and Machine Co., founded by R.R. Boykin in 1911 with $50,000. Southeastern closed its doors almost immediately, with no documented output. Yazoo City, made famous in many a stand-up routine by country comedian Jerry Clower, became a brief footnote in automotive history when the Orr Modern Motor Car Co. turned out a prototype in 1915 before going out of business. Gulfport’s Richard Carter Automobile Co. produced between three and 25 steam-powered cars during its 1920-21 run, making it the most successful enterprise in Mississippi’s automotive history.
I read two books recently that document states with much more impact on the early motorcar industry. The first, a slim volume printed in 1990 by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, is called Entering the Auto Age: The Early Automobile in North Carolina, 1900-1930. Voluminous endnotes after each chapter prove Robert E. Ireland did an excellent job researching the dozen or so attempts North Carolinians made to get a foothold in the growing auto industry, as well as the effect all these cars had on the state’s business climate. History really comes alive when Ireland tells of the 1920 auto show in Charlotte (in which 6,800 spectators paid to review autos representing 47 dealers) or details the financial troubles that brought an end to many upstart firms such as the Greensboro Motor Car Co., Southern Truck and Car Co., Asheville Light Car Co., and Wizard Automobile Co., to name a few.
Bill Jepsen opened my eyes to the rich automotive history in his native state when he wrote and published a beautiful hardback epic in 2007 called Made in Iowa: Iowa’s Automobiles. This 330-page love letter to the history of Midwest motoring has hundreds of illustrations – many for cars I never even knew existed. (Am I the only person to whom the Muscatine-built Littlemac, “the most amazing car of 1930,” came as a complete surprise?) Jepsen covers the obscure (Waterloo’s 1904-05 Greutsmacher) as well as legitimate manufacturers such as Grinnell’s Spaulding (1910-16), Des Moines’ Mason/Maytag/Mohler (1906-14), and Dubuque’s Adams-Farwell (1898-1913).
Iowa was also involved in America’s brief (1913-15) infatuation with the cyclecar – those lightweight and extremely cheap two-seaters that seemed oh-so-European. Davenport’s Zip Cyclecar Co. seemed to have a winner in that race, with its $395 price tag and big-car styling, but only 123 were built before the fad ended.
Jepsen’s sense of humor really comes through when describing some of the more-ludicrous also-rans. I was especially amused by his handling of the 1983-84 Litestar, a futuristic-looking three-wheeler that was to have been built in Carroll and Scranton with a jet fuselage body and noisy 450cc Honda motorcycle engine. Backing up required the driver to exit the car and push because there was no reverse gear. Only the rough prototype was produced, making the Iowa’s Litestar more successful than half of Mississippi’s efforts.
