As it often happens, writing the script for my next YouTube video has turned into an indulgence in context. What was to be a quick look at the 1915 Harley-Davidson 11K racer has turned into a myriad of rabbit holes, but it's coming.
Seen here is the Harley-Davidson Motor Company in 1906, featuring founders, staff, and customers alongside a handful of its earliest machines. The photo is listed as 1906; however, it may actually be 1907, as it was taken in front of the Chestnut Street factory, the first expansion beyond the Davidson family's shed. This is because Chestnut St. wasn't complete until December 1906, so if this was taken then it looks unseasonably balmy.
If it is from 1906, Harley-Davidson was still but a seed of the company we know today. Only about 50 Harley-Davidson motorcycles total had been built, quite few compared to the nearly 2,000 Indians rolling out of Springfield that year alone. It was also not Harley-Davidson, but rather Merkel, that was the most notable motorcycle maker in Milwaukee. Only a single Harley dealership existed, C.H. Lang's in Chicago, which accounted for about half of the Harleys sold. I believe Lang and his business partner, George Lyon, are seen front and center, with Lang sporting the mustache.
Still not incorporated, co-founder Arthur Davidson was working as a pattern maker, and William S. Harley was a Junior at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Machining expert and future president of the brand, Walter Davidson, appears standing in the large doorway, and the eldest Davidson brother, Bill, had yet to join the operation.
Slow progress is still progress. In 1906, the first Harley-Davidson arrived on the West Coast, sold in California, and Harley made its national debut when Lang and Lyon exhibited them at the Chicago Auto Show. It was also the year that a second color was offered, either piano black or the fresh new gray, leading to the famous "Silent Gray Fellow" moniker. Production tripled at the new factory in 1907, and in a few years, Harley-Davidson's meteoric growth had it counted among America's Big Three motorcycle makers.