A glimpse into the Hendee Manufacturing Company's stock room in the early spring of 1904. Here, roughly 60 of the reported 596 Indian's built in 1904 await shipment after a thorough assembly and testing process. Though the power plants were the design of Indian's engineer Oscar Hedstrom, they were actually cast at the Aurora Manufacturing Company facility, makers of Thor motorcycles in Aurora, Illinois. It was at the Aurora factory that the engines for roughly 4,000 Indian motocycles were made under contract between 1902 and 1907. Once the engines were delivered to Springfiled, they were disassembled, inspected, and reassembled along with the remaining components. Hedstrom himself closely supervised the process of installing and tuning the carburetors, making sure each machine was perfectly dialed in. Once fully assembled the machines underwent two road tests before being returned for a final cleaning and stacked up in the store room seen here.
