INDEPENDENCE DAY
Thursday - July 4, 1912

Cowley County Fairgrounds

Winfield, Kansas

 

 

 

Local resident Glenn Breed is shown here parked in front of 217 East Ninth Street in Winfield in 1913 at the wheel of the same 1909 Buick Model 17 that he won the 20-lap “Free-for-All” race in on this afternoon.  Note the gap between the back of the hood and the cowl (a.k.a. firewall) of this car.  That indicates that this may have been what later became known as a “Marquette-Buick” developed by the Buick factory racing team to be a stock appearing but, in actuality, a hybrid racing car – Photograph from the private collection of Michael A. Darrah.  Please do not reproduce without his permission.

 

 

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Winfield Daily Courier
Wednesday, June 5, 1912 - Front Page

Auto Races Fourth
Some Fine Goes for Cash Prizes at the Fair Grounds

The fair grounds at this place will be the scene of some interesting auto races on the coming Fourth of July, Martin Baden and Roy Nunn having secured the grounds for that day and for that purpose.  The plan now is to have three races for cars of “thirty” or under, five miles.  Cash prizes will be offered in each of the events.  Full details will be published later.

So far, no other plans have been arranged for the entertainment of the people here on the Fourth.  Both Winfield and Arkansas City have some speedy cars and some fast drivers.  The track here is the best half-mile track in the state making it possible to get some high speed.  Good auto races are exceedingly interesting and are very exciting.  Even aviation meets create no greater enthusiasm than do the auto races.  Baden and Nunn are experienced auto men have planned the meet here so it will be a success.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arkansas City Daily News
Monday, July 1, 1912 – Page 3:

The Auto Races Fourth
Big Times at Winfield Next Thursday

 

The most exciting events ever pulled off in Winfield will be the big auto races here on the 4th of July, next Thursday.  The advance entries for these already indicate the immense interest the owners of motor vehicles are taking in them.  Some of the best drivers in this part of the country will make the go.

Every arrangement is making for the proper handling of the crowds that will be sure to attend.  The admission to the grounds will be 25¢.  A proper force to keep people away from the dangerous turns in the track will be provided.  The patrons should remember this when the specials warn them away, as it will be done to prevent any uncalled for accidents that would mar the enjoyment of the occasion.

The devotees of the fistic art will be cared for in the bulleting of the news of the Big Fight at Reno, by rounds.  So it will not be necessary to remain uptown to get fight news.

The following are some of the entries already made:

There will also be a Ford⁴ and another Buick from Wichita entered, and a Velie⁵ car from Kansas City, Missouri.

Webmaster’s note:  According to an article on the front page of the June 8, 1912 issue of the Arkansas City Daily Traveler, race promoter Martin Baden of Winfield reported that C. A. Fulton of Boston, Massachusetts had also entered a Buick in these races but there is no indication that Fulton ever appeared.

 

 

 

Arkansas City Daily News
Tuesday, July 2, 1912 – Page 3:

Winfield Auto Races
Promise to be a Great Feature the Fourth

A large number of visitors from this city will go to Winfield Thursday the 4th, to witness the auto races.  They have scheduled some of the most interesting contests among which will be a ten-mile race and a two-mile race free-for-all.  Six entries have been made in the former and five in the later, and they compose some of the fastest machines in Kansas.

Harry Collinson, of this city, is pushing the publicity end in this city and he tells a news reporter today that the program will be one of the best ever seen in Southern Kansas.  Harry is greatly interested in a Buick which has entered the ten-mile race and he thinks the Buick will win, so he is betting dollars to doughnuts on the Buick.

 

 

 

Arkansas City Daily Traveler
Monday, July 1, 1912 – Page 8; Tuesday, July 2, 1912 - Page 8; Wednesday, July 3, 1912 - Page 2; and Thursday, July 4, 1912 - Page 6:

 

Watch the Buick at Winfield July 4

One thing we want you to know, that both Buicks driven at Winfield are Old regular stock Buick cars.  Mr. Breed's car is a Model 17 Buick that went through a fire at Hutchinson.  Mr. Breed bought the ruins, repaired it, and now goes 75 miles an hour with this machine.  In fact, has never met his equal.  W. W. Brown's Buick is one that burned in the big garage fire at Kansas City.  He too, knew the Buick quality and purchased the machine, put it in repair, and now goes a mile a minute.

This proves that every Buick is a Buick through and through, and when better and more durable cars are built, Buick will build them.

Collinson Auto Co.

 

 

 

Arkansas City Daily Traveler
Wednesday, July 3, 1912 - Page 4:

 

 

 

Big Automobile Races July 4th At The Fair Grounds
2:30 P.M.  Admission to Grounds 25¢

 

 

 

Winfield Daily Courier
Friday, July 5, 1912 - Page 4:

BIG CROWD AT RACES
Most Successful Private Amusement Enterprise
A Thrilling Accident to “Lucky Jim”
Martin Baden and Roy Nunn Gave the People an Adequate Amusement Afternoon

The biggest thing at the auto races here on the Fourth was the success of the entertainment, due to the enterprise and energy of Martin Baden and Roy Nunn.  It was the biggest thing in the way of amusement ever pulled off by private effort in Winfield.

The biggest thrill was Jim Henderson’s going through the fence with his auto traveling at the rate of sixty miles an hour, smashing the machine, but he and his mechanic escaping unhurt, with not even a scratch.

Fully four thousand people saw the races, according to the ticket sales and issue of complimentaries.  The grandstand was packed and the quarter stretch was lined with vehicles and people on foot, both inside and out.  One hundred and two autos were counted along the lines, seventy-five of which were in the quarter stretch.  These alone contained in the neighborhood of a thousand people.  The “Frisco bleachers” (railroad right-away) outside the grounds were swarming with people not counted in the estimate of four thousand spectators, but they were among those benefited by the enterprise and may be counted in as evidence of the success and popularity of the games.  Mr. Baden and Mr. Nunn have every reason to feel grateful and proud of the outcome of the affair and are doubly happy that no accident resulting in injury took place.

The judges of the races were Arthur Bangs, Martin F. Jarvis, and G. H. Sternberg.  The timers were Ed Piper, John Sanders, and Harry Collinson.  Niles Goodrich was starter.

It was in the first heat of the two-mile race for cars under twenty-five that “Lucky Jim” met the accident and smashup that wrecked a perfectly good Regal and scared four thousand people out of a year’s growth each.  With an assistant, Jack Richards, of Crawford Auto Co. aboard, he was crowding the leader when a jam of his steering gear prevented him making the turn at the northeast corner and his machine went through the fence.  The audience saw the boards fly in a shower, then a cloud of dust hid the scene of the wreck from view.  Before the first rush of spectators had run a hundred yards toward the break in the fence, the two boys were seen to run like phoenix birds and wave their hands in a signal that they were all right.  A tremendous cheer greeted their re-appearance but the machine will have to be rebuilt before it will again be fit for running.  A heap of twisted iron and splintered wood, it reposed on first base at the baseball diamond of the Winfield Reds, its front turned to the south.

 

 First Heat:  Cars over 25 h.p. - 2 Miles  (4 Laps) - 3 cars

	Name:	From:	Car:	Purse:	Time:	Best Mile:
1	W. W. Brown1	Kansas City, Missouri	Buick #10	$20	2:08
2	Charles Mosieux	Kansas City, Missouri	Flanders 20	$10
3	Jim Henderson2	Dexter, Kansas	Regal	DNF – Wreck
First Heat: Cars under 25 h.p. - 2 Miles (4 Laps)
1	W. W. Brown1	Kansas City, Missouri	Buick	$20	2:55
2	Glenn Breed3	Winfield, Kansas	Buick	$10
Second Heat:  Cars under 25 h.p. - 2 Miles (4 Laps)
1	W. W. Brown1	Kansas City, Missouri	Buick #10	$20	2:52	1:25
2	Charles Moieux	Kansas City, Missouri	Flanders 20	$10
Free-For-All: 10 Miles (20 laps)
1	Glenn Breed3	Winfield, Kansas	Buick	$300	14:08.5	1:24
2	Charles Mosieux	Kansas City, Missouri	Flanders 20	$150
3	W. W. Brown1	Kansas City, Missouri	Buick #10	DNF
W. W. Brown dropped out of this race “by his gasoline giving out” although he was later to say that it was due to transmission trouble.      One source states that W. W. Brown finished second in this race while Charles Mosieux finished in third place.
Slow Race: ¼ Mile
1	Harold Cooper8	Winfield, Kansas	Paige Detroit
In this race, contestants were required to drive the course without touching foot control or in any way using any means for slowing down the car excepting by means of the throttle and spark.  Paul Hutchinson, with a R-C-H, was giving a good exhibition of slow running, being twenty feet or more behind, choked it a little too much, hereby killing his engine.

 

 

 

Arkansas City Daily News
Friday, July 5, 1912 - Page 3:

Winfield Races A Big Success
More Than Three Thousand People Attended
Big Crowd From Here Went
Crowd Saw Some Very Lucky Accidents - No One Injured

The automobile and motorcycle races at Winfield yesterday were largely attended, it being estimated that more than 3,000 people witnessed the program.  The interurban company was taxed to its capacity all day in taking passengers from this city.  Fully one thousand people from here saw the races.

In the ten-mile auto race in which Brown of Kansas City with a thirty-horse power racing Buick, Charles Mosieux of Kansas City with a Flanders 20, and Jim Henderson of Dexter with a Regal took part.  The crowd witnessed a most exciting contest and an accident attended by extraordinary luck.

As the Regal and Flanders were rounding the first curve at the north end of the track, Henderson, in the Regal, took a header for the fence.  The five-board fence was splintered by the force of the flying car.  Everyone in the grandstand sat in breathless silence as the big cloud of smoke rolled up over the embankment.  A few seconds later, Henderson and the mechanic who accompanied him, mounted the fence near the point where they went out to signal the crowd they were not hurt in the wreck.  A prolonged cheer greeted them.

Henderson was gaining on the Flanders and was in the act of passing the Kansas City man when his steering gear locked and he failed to make the turn.  The car dashed through the fence and turned square around after it went down the short embankment on the outside of the track.  Both driver and mechanic stuck to their seats and did not leave the car until it had come to a stand still.

The next ten-mile auto race was between Glenn Breed with a Buick 48, Brown with a Buick 30, and Mosieux with a Flanders 20.  The big Buick 49 took the lead from the start with the Flanders second.  However, although Brown got off bad, he crawled up to second place and was making it warm for Breed when his gasoline ran out and his racer quit him cold.  This left the field to the other two cars and the Flanders was no match for the big Buick.  In this race, Breed carried away $300 as first money and the Flanders got $150 as second money.  The awards in the motorcycle races consisted of prizes in the way of tires.

In all, the races were very good and the big crowd seemed to have been pretty well pleased with the program.  The races are said to have cost the management about $1,500 while it is estimated that the gate receipts would much more than cover the expenditure.

 

 

 

Arkansas City Daily Traveler
Friday, July 5, 1912 - Page 5:

Buick Won The Events
Some Fast Races on the Winfield Track Yesterday Which a Large Number of Local People Attended

Nearly 2,000 people, including a large number of Arkansas City visitors, witnessed an afternoon of motorcycle and automobile race events at Winfield yesterday in which W. W. Brown, of Kansas City in a Buick “20” automobile, the latter representing the Collinson Auto Co. of this city, carried off nearly all the events.

The weather was ideal and the big grandstand at the Winfield racetrack was packed.  The events opened at 2:50 (p.m.)  In the automobile races, W. W. Brown, of Kansas City, driving the Buick “20” which won the R. H. Collins Cup⁷ for the five-mile race at the recent events at Elm Ridge Park at that place, was entered in the name of the local Collinson Automobile Co.

Baden and Nunn managed the races.

Webmaster’s note:  It should be noted that the results that accompanied the above story differed from the other two newspaper accounts above, in that it gave the time for the 20 lap Free-for-All race as being 12:08 and said that Charles Mosieux drove a Studebaker.  The Flanders automobile was, indeed, manufactured by Studebaker.  See the next newspaper account below.

 

 

 

Dexter Dispatch

Thursday, July 12, 1912 – Front Page:

 

Destroyed the Machine

Paul D. Maurer⁶ entered his Regal car in the ten-mile Free-for-All at Winfield July Fourth.  Jim Henderson was the driver and with him was his mechanic.  There were two other cars in this race – a Buick and Studebaker.  For a time, both cars were ahead of the Regal, the latter to beginning to develop speed until the machinist got the gasoline to feeding properly.  On the sixth mile, the machine had passed the Studebaker and every turn of the wheel was bringing it closer to the Buick when, at the northeast corner, it went into a three-board fence mowing down several posts, and practically destroying the machine.  The occupants of the car were not hurt in the least.  The machine was evidently the fastest car on the track and would have been an easy winner had it not left the track.

 

Webmaster’s note:  The above article is in error in that the accident actually occurred in the four-lap first heat race rather than in the twenty-lap Free-for-All race.

 

 

 

Arkansas City Daily Traveler
Friday, July 5, 1912 - Front Page:

Racing Car In City Again

The Buick auto which won the ten-mile Free-for-All and the two-mile race at Winfield yesterday afternoon and which holds the R. H. Collins Cup for the five mile race at Kansas City recently, was in the city again this morning for a short time before returning to Kansas City.  The car was accompanied by its three owners: James Cox, Ben Brown, and W. W. Brown, driver and left this afternoon for the north.  The three men expected to reach Kansas City in fourteen hours, the greater part of which will be spent on this half of the distance.

 

 

 

¹ William Wayne "W. W." Brown (1886-1958) was a pioneer racecar driver who went on to race in the 1919 Indianapolis "500".  The Buick Model 35 he drove on this day was one of the most popular cars Buick made that year, with the company selling 6,050 of them in 1912.  The Model 35 weighed 2,100 pounds, had a 101.7-inch wheelbase, a 165 cubic inch 4 cylinder engine, and sold new for $1,000.

 

² James Davis "Jim" Henderson was born in 1889 at Dexter, Kansas and was residing at Franklin, Idaho in 1917.  He was living in Detroit, Michigan when his father passed away at Winfield in 1939.  Jim was residing in Arkansas when he passed away in 1943.

 

³ Glenn Mark Breed was born on May 4, 1881 in VanBuren County, Michigan and raced for the Buick factory racing team before moving to Kansas c1909.  He then raced automobiles professionally on dirt racetracks all over Kansas before moving to Austin, Texas around 1918.  He returned to Michigan in 1948 and worked at the Gobles Auto Supply in Gobles, Michigan.  He also worked as an engine rebuilder for the Troy Motor Company in Paw Paw, Michigan.  Glenn died on November 11, 1960 at Paw Paw, Michigan and is buried in the Robinson Cemetery at Gobles, Michigan.

Carl E. Evans

 

⁴ The Ford was entered by sportsman Carl E. Evans (1886-1964) who was born at Russiaville, Indiana and moved to Wichita, Kansas to work for the fledgling Jones Motor Co.  By the time these races were run at Winfield, Evans was working for the Arnold Automobile Co. in Wichita.  Evans became the promoter of auto racing at the Meridian Speedway in Wichita in 1922.  Later, he owned Dodge and Plymouth dealerships in Wichita.

 

⁵ Velie automobiles were manufactured from 1902 through 1928 at Moline, Illinois by Willard Lamb Velie (c1866-1928).  Willard was the youngest grandson of John Deere.  He was also a vice-president Deere & Company and his automobile was distributed through Deere & Company farm implement dealerships.

 

⁶ Paul DeWitt Maurer (1891-1920) was working as a freight agent for the Missouri Pacific Railroad in Dexter, Kansas when this race was run.  He later became a pharmacist and proprietor of the Myers and Maurer drugstore in Dexter.

 

⁷ The R. H. Collins Trophy was a sterling silver cup named for the manager of a Kansas City Buick dealership who went on to become a vice-president of General Motors.  W. W. Brown was the last to win this trophy doing so on June 15, 1912, just two weeks before this race at Winfield.

 

⁸ Harold Eldon Cooper (1883-1953) worked for the First National Bank in Winfield.

 

⁹ R. A. C. stood for “Ricketts Automobile Co.” which produced the “Ricketts 6” automobile at the Ricketts Auto Works, South Bend, Indiana from 1905 to 1911.  The Standard Automobile Co. of Wichita, Kansas was a Ricketts automobile dealership.  For more information about the Ricketts automobile, see: TheOldMotor.com

 

¹⁰ Charles William "Will" Swain (1884-1960) was born in Richland Twp., Cowley Co., Kansas which was just a few miles northeast of this racetrack.  At the time of these races, he owned and operated an automobile agency in downtown Wichita, Kansas.

 

 

Webmaster’s note:  It is worth noting here that the organizers, promoters, judges, and timekeepers of the races on this day were local men and among the most prominent of Winfield's citizens at that time.

 

 

 

Return to page one of the History of Auto Racing at Winfield website.