Davenport Locomotive Company Engine Used In China

Des Moines Register. September 14, 1930.

The Des Moines Register printed this picture of the Number One locomotive on China's K. P. Railroad. It was made by the Davenport Locomotive Company and has been in service for years. 

Skyjack Hill Motorcycle Climb - Carlisle, Iowa

Riders came from across the country for a motorcycle hill climb at Skyjack Hill, located five miles southeast of Carlisle, Iowa. The event was held on June 1, 1930.

The contest drew twelve professional riders from different parts of the country, along with over 30 riders from Iowa and neighboring states.

Several well-known hill climb riders entered the contest. Petrali of Chicago was listed as a national hill climb champion. Reiber of Milwaukee entered as the runner-up from the previous year’s championship climb. Art Erlenbaugh of Milwaukee also competed. He was reported to hold a hill climb record of 6.25 seconds.

 

Steamboat Muscatine

The Davenport Democrat and Leader published this image of the Steamer Muscatine on August 25, 1929. The paper said the boat began service on the Mississippi River in 1864.

Mason Motor Car Company Des Moines Iowa

Mason Motor Co. ad, 1906

The first thing you need to know about the Mason Motor Car Company is that it never should have worked. Not in Des Moines, not in 1906, not in a state where most people still trusted a good horse over any contraption that hissed, rattled, and tried to kill you on a dirt road. Yet for a few bright, reckless years, two brothers with machine oil on their hands and speed on their minds tried to drag Iowa—kicking, screaming, and occasionally bleeding—into the automobile age.

Fred and August Duesenberg weren’t normal. They looked at a peaceful bicycle and thought, What if this thing went 60 miles an hour and tried to shake its rider’s fillings out? The Des Moines Daily News called them “the sort of young men who consider mechanical noise to be a form of conversation.” They were tinkerers, racers, mechanics, engineers—whatever you want to call them—but above all, they were hungry. Hungry for speed, recognition, and the clean snapping sound an engine makes when it finds its rhythm and behaves. So when Des Moines attorney Edward Mason threw some money at them and said, “Make a car,” they didn’t hesitate. They built the Mason, a small, explosive two-cylinder machine that rattled windows, terrified horses, and made its owners feel like they were cheating death—or at least borrowing trouble from it.