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Book recounts Iowa's role in early automobile history
1st December, 2007
Bill Jepsen of Boone has accomplished something no Iowan has ever done, or probably even tried. He's compiled a 325-page history of automobiles made in Iowa.
His new coffee-table book contains long-forgotten tales, like the story of what is believed to be the first electric car in America, created by a Des Moines inventor in 1890, as well as an account of the 1906 publicity stunt in which Fred Duesenberg drove his prototype of a car called the Mason up the steps of the Iowa Capitol.
The author documents more than 50 car models that were made, mostly between 1900 and 1915, in towns including Dubuque, Davenport, Mason City, Grinnell, Des Moines and beyond. He also reports that two to three dozen additional automotive schemes were hatched during that period but never came to fruition.
Some schemers "never intended to build a vehicle, but saw the opportunity to fleece municipalities and the general public with the promise of large profits and employment opportunities," Jepsen writes in the book's introduction.
The 63-year-old Jepsen spent more than 20 years compiling stories, photos, advertisements and other memorabilia for "Iowa Automobiles," which sells for $40.
"I'm an Iowa history buff, and I had no idea there was such a presence of automobile manufacturers in Iowa," said John Heitzman, owner of the Book Store, 606 Locust St. in Des Moines, which carries the book.
Jepsen estimates he paid $50,000 to get the book produced, with Sigler Cos. of Ames doing most of the work.
The initial press run was for 3,500 copies, and Jepsen figures he'll break even on his expenses when sales top 2,200. He's already sold more than 250 copies from a pre-publication mailing.
The books began showing up at independent bookstores just before Thanksgiving and will appear in more Iowa stores in coming weeks.
Jepsen's fascination with cars began when he was growing up in Davenport during the 1950s.
"I was all of five or six," he writes, when he sat with his father on the front steps of the family home on Locust Street and tried to name passing cars.
His father told stories, Jepsen said, about the Velie, a car that was "made just across the river" in Moline, Ill., from 1902 to 1928 by the grandson of John Deere, and of other early car ventures, like the Auburn that was built in Indiana beginning in 1904, "and the fabulous Duesenberg," which had a Des Moines connection.
After growing up in Davenport, Jepsen graduated from the University of Iowa with a marketing degree in 1967. He was drafted and served in Vietnam before going back to school in Oklahoma for a teaching degree in history. He then moved to Ames to take more history courses and work a variety of jobs before owning an Ames tavern called That Place, and becoming a landlord.
One constant was Jepsen's love of cars and car history.
In 1980, he saw an article in Antique Automobile magazine about the Mason, a car that was originally built in Des Moines by Fred Duesenberg, and later in Waterloo with backing from washing machine maker Fred Maytag.
"At the end of the article they published a list of over 50 automobiles manufactured in Iowa," Jepsen wrote in the forward to his book.
"I was captivated" he said, and began doing his own research.
Most of the 50 vehicles listed by the magazine never made it into production, but there were a lot of "automotive efforts" in Iowa, Jepsen said.
The book is loosely organized by the degree of success that various car-making efforts had.
The first chapter is called "Dreams, Schemes & Misinformation," and includes a description of several failed efforts, including the Nothstine's Steam Beetle in Des Moines in 1923.
Pharmacist Elias Nothstine introduced his idea for a new type of valveless steam engine "with only 14 moving parts, and of very light construction" years after the idea of steam power had been replaced by the internal combustion engine, Jepsen wrote.
At least one car was built with the engine, but no factory. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the steam car was its low-slung, streamlined design, which was decades ahead of its time.
Chapter 2 is called "Yes, No, Maybe" and lists more than a dozen car-building efforts that are based on stories "that are questionable, but cannot be fully dismissed," Jepsen wrote, like the story of Henry D. Nelson of Redfield, who was said to have invented an electric-powered vehicle capable of carrying two people "before the Civil War."
Nelson was a reclusive inventor who lived in Dallas County, but the evidence for a pre-Civil War car is slim, Jepsen wrote. It consists of a Chicago Tribune article from 1898 written as a decades-later recollection by a fellow inventor.
A stronger claim to having created the first electric car can be made by another Iowan, Des Moines inventor William Morrison, who earned a place in automotive history on Sept. 4, 1890, when he drove his electric-powered carriage in Des Moines' annual Seni Om Sed (Des Moines spelled backward) parade.
Jepsen wrote that Morrison was "a genius when it came to electric storage batteries," and "began work on a battery-powered carriage as early as 1887." The carriage he drove in the parade three years later carried seven people, according to a 1963 article in the Iowan magazine, Jepsen wrote.
The article said Morrison claimed the carriage could travel 100 miles at speeds of up to 12 miles an hour without having the battery recharged.
Only a dozen electric carriages were made before Morrison confined his research to his real passion, storage batteries, Jepsen wrote.
The book also has chapters on one-of-a-kind cars, autos made for children, prototypes and vehicles that were actually manufactured for sale in Iowa.
Included in the latter category are the Adams-Farwell, a car made in Dubuque from 1898 to 1913 with a rotary engine; the Spaulding, a touring car made in Grinnell from 1910 to 1916; and the Mason and Maytag-Mason, which was made in Des Moines and Waterloo between 1906 and 1910.
Jepsen also includes profiles of four automotive pioneers, the brothers Fred and August Duesenberg, who began their careers in Des Moines before going on to make one of most prized collectable cars, the Duesenberg, in Indianapolis; Walter Chrysler, who worked for the Chicago Great Western Railroad in Oelwein when he bought his first car in 1908; and pioneer farm tractor maker William Galloway, who had fingers in everything from car making to seed sales and real estate development in Waterloo.
Business Editor David Elbert can be reached at (515) 284-8533 or delbert@dmreg.com
Release link:
http://desmoinesregister.com/
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