(About photo: What a rake!)
BIO
The first time Barney Oldfield (1878-1946), a 24-yr-old bicycle racer at the turn of the century, drove a car was in a race. He was racing for Henry Ford, then a fledgling wisp of an horseless carriage manufacturer, who was trying to make a name for himself in Detroit. Racing in Ford's "999," Oldfield won . . . and a legend was born. Ford's, that is. Today, few of us remember ole daredevil Barney, except maybe Richard Petty's grandfather and gear-heads who've spent too much time in Daytona's infield.
An auspicious start, Oldfield went on to set numerous records. He was the first to drive around a mile-long track in less than a minute; held the land-speed record (1910: 131.25 mph; it stood until 1927); the mile from a standing start, at 88.84 mph; and the first one-hundred mph lap at Indianapolis.
THE BICYCLE YEARS
-- Lakeside Historical Society: "Oldfield was a large, strong professional bicycle racer. His early life was very hard. He began work as a water boy on a construction crew, and moonlighted as a bellhop. He started bicycle racing at age sixteen, won his first race and found he could sell his gold medal back to the promoter for cash." Ain't that some moxie.
-- The Detroit News: In 1894 more than 250,000 bicycles were manufactured in the United States; 400,000 in 1895. In 1899, 312 bicycle factories, with capital worth $30 million and a production of 1.1 million machines, worked to satisfy enthusiasts. The bikes cost $100 plain and $125 fancy, a not inconsiderable sum of money at the time. But within 10 years the bicycling fade began to fade, replaced by newfangled motorized contraptions.
GALLERIES
-- A fine fan site of picture after picture and newspaper clippings what show B.O.'s achievements at the dawn of auto-age.
-- It was probably pretty easy to set records back when "white wings" used to clean up tons of horse poop a day from the streets. But c'mon, dude raced a plane. How . . . er, fin de siecle.
THE NATION'S ATTIC
-- B.O.'s fame grows, insanely. When the average laborer made $2/day, Oldfield was living large. Smithsonian Magazine: "With his agent, the ingenious Will Pickens, Oldfield soon was making money hand over fist. He often sported thousands of dollars' worth of jewelry, including a four-carat diamond pinky ring, and he handed out $5 tips when a dime would do. Once in San Francisco, greeted at the station by a brass band, he invited all 65 musicians to dinner at the Palace Hotel and paid a tab of $845, two years' income for many Americans at the time. He spent thousands in bars, where he gained a scandalous reputation as a brawler. What money he didn't drink up or bet on horses seemed to go for fines posed by the American Automobile Association, which, from 1902, was the self-proclaimed arbiter of all speed records and which insisted on a certain decorum around the tracks."
SALEABLE ITEMS
-- Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire