Muskogee's Bicycle Craze

The bicycle craze struck Muskogee residents during the spring and summer months of 1896. The interest in bicycles swept into other Oklahoma towns like Vinita several months after it began in Muskogee.

The eastern states saw this euphoria earlier, beginning in 1887. For example, the Wright brothers purchased their first bicycles in the spring of 1892. This was a decade before their interest in flight took them to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Bicycles of the 1890's operated somewhat differently than modern two-wheelers. This is because a chain directly connected the pedals and rear wheel. When one turned, so did the other.
The faster one sped along the faster the pedals turned. Coasting ever faster down a hill challenged the cyclist to pedal faster. This is why Muskogee inventor, George Beebe, came out with an improved propulsion where an "up and down" motion powered the rear wheel. The March 22, 2007, blog will tell you more about his invention.

On the last day of April 1896, a bicycling crowd headed east to Fort Gibson. The pretty weather encouraged to group of men to over-do it physically. Moreover, the road proved to be a challenge.

Some rode out and back. Many more walked back or caught a train ride. In the early days, there were no gears or multiple sprockets to make pedaling up hill easier. Riding to Fort Gibson required conditioning that few of these April cyclists possessed.

Hardware stores advertised the sale of different brands of bicycles. Maddin Hardware ads touted bicycling as excellent exercise for the businessman. The store sold the Columbia "wheel." A Columbia "High Wheel" had a large drive (front) wheel and a 15-inch back wheel. Columbia also manufactured modern style bicycles during this period. The Turner Hardware Company sold the Fowler brand of machines. They were sturdier and simpler bicycles.

A man named Shultz rode into Muskogee about this same time on a Columbia "Wheel." He was traveling from Los Angeles to Hartford, Connecticut. Schultz was emulating Thomas Stevens' 1884 transcontinental ride.

In the middle of June 1896, there was talk of having a bicycle race, or perhaps two, at the Muskogee fair in the fall. It was to be an attention-getting event open to all territorial cyclists. Unfortunately, the plans for the fair fell through that year.

However, bicycling entered the public's vocabulary in full measure. Never failing to miss a chance to connect with buyers, stores used the cycling imagery to promote product sales to the younger adult market. Advertisements for both men's and women's merchandise capitalized on the bicycle interest.

Even the Muskogee Literary and Society Club was not immune to the fad. Often the members performed readings of poetry or sang songs. Bicycling entered the picture when the newspaper reported the effort of one non-rider reading the Mosaics magazine as going "spinning up the road of good journals."

Ultimately, the price of a bicycle dropped because of mass production. As a result, bicycles became common around town. The heady days when few owned two-wheelers were fleeting glory days. In Muskogee, those days were in 1896.

Early Muskogee Inventor Identified

Resting quietly in the Greenhill Cemetery is an inventor who lived in Muskogee over 100 years ago. His creation has been forgotten for decades. Here is how he was rediscovered along with a description of his life and invention.

George F. Beebe, a resident of Muskogee, Indian Territory, was found through a search of records in the US Patent Office. George's patent was on an "improved driving mechanism" that promised increased "speed at a minimum expenditure of strength and exertion" by the rider. The diagram above is of a standard bicycle of the day with Beebe's patented gears on the rear axle.

Modern bicycles transfer leg power from circular pedaling through a chain to the gears on the rear axle. Beebe proposed a radical departure from this process. His idea was to use a pumping motion up and down ratcheting the gears to gain motion.

Muskogee was not known for its bicycles when this patent was filed in 1897. People often think of trains roaring through town on a regular basis, sometimes startling horses and mules. On the other hand, two-wheeled vehicles do not show up in area history unless one looks closely.

Who was George F. Beebe? He was born in New York on May 12th, 1816. The 1880 census reports that he worked as a "Patent Rights Agent." This work allowed him to learn the process of applying for patents and the merits of doing so.

Beebe is granted his first patent in 1884 for an improvement to a pump. He returns to thinking about pumps in 1890 when he applies for another patent on an additional improvement.

In between his modifications to the design of pumps, George turned his attention to transportation. During this half decade, he receives two more patents for separate improvements in the design of sulkies. Sulkies are two wheel carriages which allow room for only one passenger. Today similar carriages are seen at race tracks.

George Beebe leaves New York and settles in Muskogee sometime during the middle of the 1890's. Even though he seems to still be active in his older years, he apparently chooses to live with his second son, Oscar, for practical reasons. Oscar has probably followed the railroads westward to Muskogee, thereby prompting his father to come here, too. By 1900 Oscar worked his way up the ranks until he became the local yard master of the Katy railroad.

It is in Muskogee that the final design is ironed out between father and son for the new bicycle propulsion that the father patents. The patent is filed on the last day of 1897 and is granted January 10th, 1899 when George Beebe is 82 years old. At his death on the following December 27th he possessed five patents, all earned after his 68th birthday. Welcome to the new blog about Muskogee's history and genealogy.

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