Welcome to a new series in Rare Rides universe, where we’ll spend some digital ink considering the humans behind the automotive experience. This series will focus on the lives and times of industrialists, inventors, engineers, tycoons, and more. who have decided to devote part of their life to the automobile, whether intentionally, accidentally or against their will. Ideally, we’ll start with the characters and then cover their automobiles in a Rare Rides or Icons series.
Our first Rare Rides Personas subject is Powel Crosley Jr., a well-known native of your author’s current town of Cincinnati, Ohio. Commentator Jeff S suggested a Crosley revival in May, and here we are a few months later with the launch of a brand new series. Onward to Crosley!
Powel Crosley Jr. was born on September 18, 1886 in the rapidly growing river town of Cincinnati, Ohio. Powel was the eldest child of Powel Crosley Sr. (1849-1932) and Charlotte Wooley (1864-1949). The family was not without means, as Crosley’s father was a local lawyer. He spent his entire 56-year legal career practicing in Cincinnati and was still practicing at age 83 just weeks before his death.
Crosley Sr. was interested in law, the Republican Party, theater, and new radio technologies. He held a permanent lease on the Pike Opera House and ran Pike’s Theater until the building burned down in 1903. Interested in the early days of radio, at the turn of the century, he invested in the first Marconi Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company. . He also bought his son a radio as a child, an action that would have a profound effect on the boy’s life.
Crosley Jr. was the eldest of four children in the family, who lived north of downtown Cincinnati in an upper-middle-class part of the College Hill neighborhood. During Crosley’s downtime between school and playing with his radio, he became interested in the mechanical workings of cars. The automobile was still in its infancy at the turn of the century, but from an early age Crosley was determined to make a car.
And it wasn’t just a childhood dream. At the age of 12, Crosley attempted to build his first car on the family’s College Hill estate. Crosley’s father was amused by the effort and bet his son $10 that his car wouldn’t be complete or actually run. Ten dollars was no small amount of money in 1898, that amount adjusts to $357 today.
As the stakes were high, Powel asked his younger brother Lewis (1888-1978) to help him carry out the project. Lewis brought mechanical skills and parts funding to the project. Crosley first turned to his grandfather to borrow a simple flatbed horse-drawn wagon and begged a battery from a local theater company. Perhaps the most impressive part of the car – its electric motor – was a bespoke design that Powel and his brother built by hand.
Although a crude design, the first Crosley car was an open-top EV flatbed pickup truck. Like many old automobiles, it had a bar instead of a wheel. And the finished car did work. His first trip was one block each way, to the local post office and back. It’s important to stop here for a moment and consider that two kids, ages 12 and 10, designed and built a working electric vehicle themselves.
Eyebrows raised, Powel Sr. handed over the money. With Dad’s $10 in hand, Powel Jr. repaid Lewis, his grandfather, and the theater, and split the two dollars of profit with his brother. Build a car, impress your dad, and earn $35 along the way? It’s a victory. The car was the first of many projects Powel and Lewis would work on together for decades.
Crosley Jr. maintained his interest in automobiles and certainly found them more interesting than school, sporting events, or hunting. His brother Lewis often said “The only reason [Powel] got rich to build cars. But his age and schooling prevented him from achieving his car dreams and he started high school around 1900. Initially he went to College Hill Public School but transferred to the Ohio Military Institute in Cincinnati.
The private school was very forward-looking and prepared high school students for higher education through hands-on learning in technical and industrial subjects. Such an education suited Crosley, and he completed the rest of his high school education there before enrolling at the University of Cincinnati in 1904. The college was located very close to his family home and was convenient. UC remains in College Hill today, with over 28,000 members as of 2020.
Naturally, Crosley enrolled in the university’s engineering program. But even though engineering was a subject of interest for Crosley and something in which he had skill, he nearly missed his first classes. Further pressure came from his father.
Although Powel Sr. encouraged his son’s early mechanical pursuits in radio and automobiles, he felt that his eldest would live his best professional life as a lawyer. Crosley joined UC’s law program to keep his father happy. But Powel was not particularly interested in higher education, especially when he was forced to study law. He left in 1906 after two years of lessons.
Without a degree, Crosley took his first job in an investment banking office where he did paperwork and sold bonds. Then aged 20, the thought of the automobile still occupied his mind. The work at the bank lasted a very short time: after turning 21, he decided to pursue his true passion and make an automobile. Crosley said he was going to “take a swing in the world”. Full of youth, enthusiasm, and without much real-world experience, Crosley wanted to start an automotive business.
It seemed like a promising time to do so, because while Crosley was in high school mass production of the automobile became a reality. Crosley was intensely interested in Ford’s assembly lines and interchangeable parts, both of which came together in the very first mass-produced car, the 1901 Oldsmobile Curved Dash. This new reality intensified Crosley’s desire to start an automotive business, and in particular a luxury car.
In 1907, Crosley took the first steps towards realizing his luxury car dream. He started a business called Marathon Motor Car Company and went looking for funding. But how many people were willing to fund a luxury car start-up with a 21-year-old high school dropout as the sole owner? More than expected, apparently. We will resume here in Part II.
[Image: Crosley]
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