Elmer Lovejoy – Automotive Pioneer
The time: Saturday, May 7, 1898. The place: Laramie, Wyoming. The occasion: the city’s first steam-powered “horseless carriage” made its debut with Elmer Lovejoy, its inventor, in the driver’s seat. This was but one of many highlights in the fascinating life of one of Laramie’s most significant and widely known residents.
HIS YOUTH
As I reported last week, Lovejoy was born in 1872, in Illinois. He always had a love of tinkering. After moving to Laramie, Wyoming in 1884, for health reasons, he settled into school and graduated from Laramie High School. After initially working on a ranch, repairing and maintaining ranch machinery, he set up a bicycle shop in Laramie he named Lovejoy Novelty Works and combined his love of bicycling with his knack for tinkering.
HORSELESS CARRIAGE
Young Elmer had ideas that there should be a more comfortable way of crossing the continent than on a bicycle. This was in the days before Henry Ford brought out a widely-discussed and highly-controversial contraption run by a gasoline powered engine.
In 1895 Lovejoy set out to create the first steam-powered “horseless carriage” west of the Mississippi River. According to research by UW History professor Phil Roberts, during the winter of 1897-98 Lovejoy began in earnest to build his first car. The December 17, 1897, Laramie Boomerang reported, “Elmer Lovejoy is doing little but [work] on his horseless carriage.”
In February 1898, the newspaper reported that he was, “Putting in full-time on his horseless carriage.” Two weeks later it reported that the prominent Laramie business “W.H. Holliday Company is thinking of having Elmer Lovejoy build them a horseless carriage for delivering goods.” On May 4, 1898, the local paper announced, “Elmer Lovejoy, who has received his engine for his horseless carriage, is now hard at work completing the vehicle.” The first test drive was scheduled for Saturday, May 7, 1898.
The Boomerang gave only a short, one-paragraph report of this significant event. It said, “Elmer Lovejoy exercised his horseless carriage Saturday night and Sunday. It was the first trial of the machine and was entirely satisfactory to Mr. Lovejoy. He learned by the test that it will be necessary for him to have pneumatic tires on the wheels. The carriage weighs 940 pounds and with the little iron buggy tires, cut into the soft places so that progress was very slow.” Considering these were the days when even main roads were not paved, the iron wheels must have produced one bone-jiggling ride.
Using a one-cylinder, two-cycle steam-propelled marine engine, Lovejoy’s car was driven by two chains connected to both rear wheels. It had a T-bar tiller for the operator to guide it down the street. His first car looked much like an old beer wagon. This carriage had two seats, able to comfortably carry four passengers. This modern means of conveyance was perched on four iron wheels and was guided by means of a steering lever.
STEERING KNUCLE INVENTION
Lovejoy had difficulty steering his horseless carriage. Carriages and wagons generally had the entire front axle pivot, which requires that the front wheels either be placed out in front of the body or that the body curve over the wheels so the wheels can be pivoted. To solve this problem, Lovejoy devised a “steering knuckle” or spindle which allows each front wheel to pivot. Each steering knuckle is then connected by tie rods to the steering mechanism.
The steering knuckle he invented was added to his automobile by 1905. That knuckle is nearly identical to those used on present day vehicles. When he went to his father for financing to request a patent for the knuckle, his father responded, “Go to work. There will never be such a thing as a horseless carriage.” He was unable to secure the necessary $350 to pay the fees for filing his patent request, and after two years Lovejoy sold the rights to the steering knuckle to the Locomobile Company for $800 and one of their Locomobile Steamer automobiles. He received Locomobile #55, the 55th car commercially manufactured in the United States.
In a Boomerang article, writer Vandi Moore opines, “Elmer Lovejoy invented that steering knuckle a bit too soon for his own good. By the time modern cars were made, his patent had run out, and it was anyone’s property. Thus, it was that he got ahead of himself and flubbed his chance to make a fortune on a mechanism which was so good that it has never been improved upon but has been used in cars ever since.” While it has been improved upon somewhat, it still serves as the basic concept for front-wheel and all-wheel-drive mechanisms today.
Originally Lovejoy believed pneumatic tires would not be practical. However, by 1896, Lovejoy added 4-1/2 inch balloon tires to his horseless carriage, having them specially made to his specifications in Chicago by the Morgan and Wright Bicycle Tire Company. “The pneumatic tires would make the vehicle run easier in addition to preventing it sinking into the soft places,” the Boomerang noted. It was not until almost three decades later, in the 1920s, that air-filled tires were used on automobiles commercially.
Roberts’ review of the Boomerang article observed that “there were two speeds in use on the machine yesterday, one of five and one of ten miles per hour. When the machine was on good hard places it acquired a speed of ten or twelve miles per hour.” With the addition of the pneumatic/air-filled tires and use of the two-speed transmission, “a speed of fifteen miles per hour may be attained.”
In an interview with Moore, Lovejoy talked about changing a tire on these early automobiles. “It was really quite simple,” he said. You would need to “dissolve the cement around the wooden rim with a little gasoline, pull off the tire from the rim, unsew the tire around the tube, take out the tube, repair the tube, put the tube back in the tire, sew the tire and tube back up again, apply more cement to the rim, and put the tire back on again.” That’s all!
Lovejoy’s machine became a common sight around the streets of Laramie, even though it was still considered a toy by some town folk. His first contraption wore out after two years and was scrapped.
The first gasoline-powered car was brought to Laramie in January 1902 and was an Oldsmobile purchased by Dr. H. L. Stevens and assembled by Mr. Lovejoy.
FRANKLIN DEALERSHIP
Eight years later, when Lovejoy analyzed the first Franklin gasoline car brought to Laramie by local rancher W. B. Emmons, Lovejoy saw its value as a high-altitude car owing to its air-cooled system. Lovejoy Novelty Works took on the local franchise/dealership for the “ultra-modern” gasoline-powered automobile of the Franklin Motor Car Company. He held the dealership from 1904 to 1922 when the company quit making cars.
At that time, roads in Albany County were hardly conducive to good motoring, but the young inventor managed to sell what he thought was an appreciable number of Franklins. The home office in Syracuse, N.Y. looked at the situation a little differently. Repeatedly, they sent him letters designed to spur him on to greater sales and finally, in desperation, sent its top sales manager out to Laramie to assess the situation.
The Franklin man arrived by train, and upon finding himself with 24 hours of spare time on his hands before another train headed back east, he asked to accompany Lovejoy on a tour of the area allotted to him as a regional dealer for the popular automobile. Lovejoy appeared surprised when he was requested to drive his superior “over his territory,” but obliged by quietly starting out on one of the country roads leading from Laramie.
After traveling several miles out of town, he pointed out a ranch, whose owner had bought a Franklin. Hours later, they passed a second ranch, and by the end of the day they had seen only half a dozen places in which there was any sign of life. Back in Laramie, the Franklin executive’s hand was extended in apology. “Tell me,” he begged, “WHERE you found enough people to sell the cars you HAVE sold!” And when he returned to Syracuse, he commended Elmer for his aggressiveness and his ability to sell cars in a place where there were no people to sell them to. Lovejoy that year placed second in sales in the United States, based on the population of his territory.
The Laramie Republican reported that, “As the automobile business developed, Mr. Lovejoy found there was also a demand for a cheaper car than the Franklin, and he very wisely chose the Studebaker car as a good seller and a good car for this country.” However, he abandoned the Studebaker dealership a year later. The Republican surmised, “He has built up a remarkable business and established for himself a reputation as a peer of any man in the automobile industry in the country.”
In 1907, Lovejoy opened Laramie’s first automobile rental business. Lovejoy bought a replacement for his Franklin in 1913 and drove it until 1940. He then bought a Chevrolet that he drove for the next 20 years.
REFLECTIONS
During an interview with Moore at the offices of the Boomerang, Lovejoy suggested in 1950 that he was the oldest living automobile driver in the world. He stated, “I believe I’ve driven longer than any other driver in the world.” He estimated he had driven more than one million miles in his lifetime. Two other early horseless carriage inventors—Elmer Apperson of Kokomo, Indiana, and Charles Edgar Duryea of Reading, Pennsylvania—had died in 1920 and 1938 respectively, leaving Lovejoy presumably as the only early automobile inventor still alive at the time. Lovejoy had never met either inventor but did correspond with them both.
Lovejoy also shared that, “I’ve never had an accident while driving on a public highway.” He then added, “The worst crashes I’ve experienced were a sprung bumper or a dented fender trying to get in or out of some parking spaces.”
When asked why he had not stayed in the automobile manufacturing business, Lovejoy said he had convinced himself he could make a car, and he had satisfied the curiosity of many others, and so he was content to rest with his honors.
In 1953, Elmer Lovejoy and his wife, seeking a warmer climate, moved to the West Coast. He died in Santa Ana, California, in January 1960.
By John Nutter
Source: Both photos from UW American Heritage Center
Caption: Elmer Lovejoy driving an improved version of the ‘horseless carriage” with customized balloon tires, auto maker and date are not identified in the historic photo.
Caption: Elmer Lovejoy in 1901 Oldsmobile in front of Lovejoy Novelty store at 307 2nd St. in the William Manasse Building, undated photo. Although Lovejoy’s steamer auto invention made history in 1898, he was eager to try out those from other innovators, and eventually became a dealer of Franklin and then Studebaker autos.
Elmer Lovejoy 1872-1960