About the Author
I was in the fifth grade when I had an opportunity to begin learning about the heritage of Kokomo, Indiana, my hometown. It was 1948 and the teacher, Mrs. Wagner passed out a list of local people of interest. We were to take the list home and bring back the name of the person we would like to write a biography about. My father, suggested that I should select Elwood Haynes, builder of the first gasoline automobile in America. We didn't even have a car, but I had taken rides in them occasionally. A lot of other people in our neighborhood walked everywhere they went, too. It was fairly normal in those days.
My father helped me make a list of people I should talk to. Mr. Haynes had been dead for 23 years, but his son and daughter still lived in town. Nearly everyone over 50 years old knew someone that worked at the auto factories. I had the names of the Superintendent of Schools and friend of Mr. Haynes, C. V. Hayworth, William Adrian, a mechanic that worked on the first car, Vern Faust, a former test driver at the factory and Elwood's daughter, Bernice Hillis. I was able to sit down and talk with each one except Mr. Adrian. Some of those conversations I will never forget. I was proud of my finished assignment, probably my best work of the year.
In 1951, I earned a trip to Washington D.C. from the Indianapolis Star-News. While there, I actually had an opportunity to see the first car at the Smithsonian Institution. It made the first test run on July 4, 1894.
Then the next phase of my life began. Girls, working to save money to buy a car, buying a car, more girls, finding the right girl, graduating from high school, serving two years in the army and getting married. After returning home from the army, I found a job and we bought a home and started our family. We have three children and when the youngest reached school age, it was time to start a hobby.
Antique cars seemed like a good hobby for a family. I began to start looking around and found a 1929 Peerless that seemed reasonable and it was only 25 miles away so we made a purchase and the adventure began. We joined the Pioneer Automobile Club in about 1971 and began a restoration of the car. A year later, the car was still in pieces at two different places, so we found a decent 1927 Buick, something we could tour in and tour we did. We could find a car show any weekend and we went to most of these in the family car. One weekend, we were in Flint, Michigan on Saturday for the National Buick Meet and on Sunday we were at a car show in southern Indiana (Probably why the children never got interested in the hobby after they got married).
At the next car club meeting I said we were wearing out our car going to car shows, why didn't we have one in the city where the first car was built? The members said they used to have shows downtown, but stopped several years ago. The members said if I wanted to plan one, they would support it. I approached the Downtown Merchants Association and they were very receptive and even committed to buying the trophies. The first show was held in August of 1974. A few days after that show I was invited back to the merchants meeting to discuss the event. At that meeting, the enthusiasm was high, several visitors were present and all agreed we had something that should become a festival. At that meeting, the Haynes-Apperson Festival was born. A festival that would pay tribute to the automotive heritage of the community every year. Unfortunately, the person that suggests that something is a good idea usually ends up being the chairman, a job I held for several years.
In November, I had a visit from Frank Gregory, a well known local public relation person. He had a picture of one of the old vacant automobile factory buildings, that had been altered with a sign over the door that said "National Automobile Museum." He felt that establishing a museum should be set as a goal for the festival. His plan was to have the mayor appoint a special committee of well known citizens and challenge them to assist the festival in the establishment of an automobile museum. Frank and I pitched the idea to the mayor and he agreed to help.
In January of 1976, Mayor Art Ladow held a breakfast at the Ramada Inn. Over fifty people were there and most agreed to join in. Many signed up that morning to serve on various festival committees. The festival did grow over the next few years. We toured some potential buildings, but by 1982, many of the volunteers from the mayors group had dropped out and I felt the festival needed new leadership. Local radio station WWKI owner, Don Rice, and his sidekick, Dick Bronson volunteered to have his station take over the festival and continue efforts to establish a museum. The Pioneer Auto Club would continue to take charge of the car show.
A few of the car club members and myself continued to tour prospective buildings as they came available and in 1991, we formed a not for profit corporation in order to have an incentive for people to make gifts of a building or land. I served as president of that corporation. Finally a building was offered by Kokomo Spring Company. The building was 100 years old, too small and poorly located, but the offer rejuvenated the campaign and a committee of car club members and Dick Bronson held a meeting and decided to build a new museum.
I ran the idea past an upper level Chrysler executive, John Floyd and his comment was, to be successful the building had to be strategically located and that meant on the main highway. Chrysler had purchased 180 acres on the north side of town and the local visitors bureau asked John if he would request two acres on a corner of the property from Chrysler. John said if we could get all of our plans in order, he would include a request for the museum. We all knew it was a long shot, but the Pioneer Auto Club moved forward with a fund raising campaign in July of 1996. After the campaign started, local businessman, Don Thomas called and said his associates owned property on the highway and if Chrysler wouldn't provide the land, they would.
The club members worked tirelessly, raising money at the festival, county fair, mall and anywhere else that appeared to have possibilities. In November, I received word that the owners of the eight year old Big R store were closing the building and may consider offering the property to our committee at a price, equal to the amount we were trying to raise. In December, auto club members Bob Gollner, Ralph Colter and myself met with two of the owners and made a tentative agreement to purchase the building. The 102,000 square foot building posed a monumental, but very worthwhile challenge.
Some of the best suggestions came from Chamber of Commerce president, Jim Brannon and a financial planner, Kirk Daniels. There had been some prior efforts to have a convention center in town and the visitors bureau was planning to build a new office on the highway and we were working towards having a museum. The Big R property was 11 acres and included a very large building and a concrete parking lot for 600 cars. A plan to establish an office for the visitors bureau in the building and setting aside 45,000 square feet for a civic center would leave ample space for our museum. Although there were still many hurtles to get through, the auto club members cleaned the building after it had been vacated, drove about 50 cars inside and in February of 1997, we held a major press conference. It was very well received and over the next few weeks we collected commitments for close to $450,000 in cash and in kind contributions. An agreement between the not for profit museum corporation, the visitors bureau and Howard County officials was approved. The money raised to date was to be used for improvements and a portion of the innkeepers tax would pay off the mortgage on the property. After the mortgage is satisfied, the property will belong to the county. We created a well rounded, fifteen member board of directors to oversee the civic center and museum and had a very successful start.
Over the many years in the past, I have accumulated many articles of interest, old advertisements and copies of old newspaper articles. In 2005, I began to write this book. I hope it is written so it can be easily read and understood and most of all, hope it is found to be enjoyable and info.