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The more the merrier

DES MOINES REGISTER • Febrary 7, 2005

The fact is, finding another Spaulding could be more difficult than locating that proverbial needle in a haystack.

    First, the car was manufactured only from 1910 to 1916.

    Second, only 1,481 Spaulding automobiles were made.

    Third, this 1913 “Model 30” Spaulding acquired from George Gagle of Joplin, Mo., is the only known Spaulding to exist today, and it doesn’t even have a body. “It’s coming to us in bushel baskets,” John jokes. “We’ll have to put it together.”

    Since purchasing the car in the 1980s, George has picked up pieces here and there, acquiring about 60 percent of the car. Parts coming to the museum include the frame, engine, transmission, axles, steering wheel, carburetor, four doors, four wheels, a pair of headlights and an original Spaulding diamond emblem. The seats, body and top will have to be fabricated.

    Restoration, John says, could cost $100,000. But for the museum, which itself has an estimated price tag of $20 million to $25 million, it’s as significant as the monitor is to your computer. Once restored, the car will be the showpiece of the Iowa Transportation Museum, also known as the Spaulding Center for Transportation since it will be located in the three remaining buildings of the old Spaulding Carriage and Automotive Works.

    Spaulding was founded in 1876 to make horsedrawn vehicles. By 1909, when the car was added, the factory produced 10,000 carriages and wagons a year. Increased labor costs and a reluctance by Henry Spaulding to sell to Henry Ford, however, spelled the car’s demise. The company limped into the late 1920s producing such items as Ford pickup boxes.

    Spaulding is just one of about 85 brands of cars made in Iowa, John says. Of course, most of those cars appeared early in the 20th century when you could plop an engine and drivetrain into a buckboard and call it a car.

    As the transportation museum comes together in the next few years – the buildings have 125,000 square feet of space – it would be great to display something representing each of those makes. But the museum is to be much more than that, encompassing all modes of Iowa transportation from riverboats and trains to bicycles and airplanes.

    “This will be the most comprehensive transportation museum in the state and perhaps in the region,” John says. “Iowa has made significant contributions to transportation.” Clyde Cessna of airplane fame was born in Hawthorne. Eugene Ely of Williamsburg was the first to take off and land on an aircraft carrier. Ralph Budd was a railroad innovator with Burlington Railroad. The Duesenberg brothers, Fred and August, built the Mason car in Des Moines before they left Iowa to make the classic cars that bear their name.

    Some day a Duesenberg might come to the museum. In the meantime, as the saying went, acquiring the only known Spaulding car is definitely a “doozie.” A Spaulding automobile built in Grinnell conquers the steps of the State Capitol in Des Moines around 1914. The Iowa Transportation Museum in Grinnell has acquired the only Spaulding known to exist.