This Old Paper

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Loved finding this Haynes car advertisement in the April, 1904 issue of The World’s Work magazine.  Seeing it brought back Kokomo, Indiana home-town memories!

The advertisement reads:

HAYNES

“An Automobile must be VERY Good or it is NO GOOD.” – - Simeon Ford

To reach your destination – to have the promised joy and freedom of automobiling – to avoid roadside labor, disappointment and expense, your car must be very good, and in seventeen official awards the Haynes car has been declared the very BEST. This unmatched record – made by stock cars – is at once the envy of competitors and an assurance to you. This proved reliability was not attained by chance. Mr. Haynes’ thorough scientific preparation, unequaled practical experience, proved originality in development, and enormous factory facilities could hardly fail to produce the car that has been officially declared THE VERY BEST AMERICAN CAR.

Electric Ignition, Aluminum Castings in Gas Engines, and a half dozen other essentials of all automobiles to-day were originated by Mr. Haynes. The very best of his inventions were kept by patent for the Haynes car and are not found in any other. The catalogue gives details.

HAYNES-APPERSON COMPANY, Kokomo, Indiana, U. S. A.
The Oldest Makers of Motor Cars in America. Members of the Ass’n of Licensed Auto Manufacturers.
Branch Store: 1420 Michigan Avenue, Chicago. Eastern Representatives: BROOKLYN AUTOMOBILE CO., 1239-41-43 Fulton St., Brooklyn, N. Y., and 66 West 43 St., New York City.
Agency for Southern California, J. A. Rosesteel, Los Angeles. Western N.Y. Agents, BUFFALO AUTO. EXCHANGE: 401 Franklin St., Buffalo, N.Y.

Elwood Haynes (1857 – 1925) launched the first “road trip” of his Pioneer car on July 4th, 1894 on Pumpkinvine Pike (now E. Boulevard) in Kokomo, Indiana – “City of Firsts”.  See the 1894 Haynes car here as commemorated on a 1995 postage stamp. The Haynes’ Horseless Carriage Historical Marker, located at the intersection of U. S. 31 and East Boulevard, reads: HAYNES’ HORSELESS CARRIAGE Here on July 4th, 1894, Elwood Haynes made the first test run of an automobile which he designed and built. His car reached a speed of about seven miles per hour over a six mile course on the Pumkinvine Pike.
An idea has been promoted via a letter to the editor of the Kokomo Tribune by teacher Charles Short to rename Boulevard in honor of Elwood Haynes.

This USGenWEb site presents The Elwood Haynes Auto Company by Jackson Morrow (circa 1909), a brief account of Elwood Haynes which concludes with a list of events won by Haynes cars, including Grand Prize at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, better known as the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

Elwood Haynes was a charter member of The Scientech Club, founded in Indianapolis in 1918. Considered by some to be its most important member due to his interest in and development of his first love – metals.  In 1911 he developed a new type of stainless steel and patented it in 1919. In 1912, he patented a new metal alloy – stellite – and so began his company, the Haynes Stellite Works.

On eBay, a July 1904 The World’s Work Haynes Automobile ad here, a sterling silver Elwood Haynes “horseless carriage” charm here and an Elwood Haynes signature (rare!) here.  No middle initial appears on this signature, or on any of his known legal documents.

Wikipedia’s Today’s featured article on January 7, 2010 was the entry for – Elwood Haynes!

Further reading is available through Amazon: Haynes-Apperson and America’s First Practical Automobile: A History by W. C. Madden (excerpts here at Google Books), The Complete Motorist by Elwood Haynes, and Alloys and Automobiles: The Life of Elwood Haynes by Ralph D. Gray.

Learn more about Elwood Haynes by contacting or visiting the Elwood Haynes Museum, located in his former home, on Webster Street in Kokomo. The curators there have a deep appreciation for Elwood Haynes as expressed in this Kokomo Tribune article. Kokomo’s annual Haynes-Apperson Festival is held, appropriately, the first weekend in July. Plans are already underway for the next festival – will you be there?