Heroes of Harley-Davidson
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Heroes of Harley-Davidson exhibit opens at
the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum
and outside the company - who
brought fame, pride and recognition
to the-bar and shield over the past
100 years. With the Progressive
Motorcycle Insurance Company as its
presenting sponsor, and support from
Harley-Davidson and individual
Harley-Davidson dealers, "Heroes of
Harley-Davidson" is by far the most
elaborate and comprehensive exhibit
rolled out by the institution in its thirteen-year history.
Visitors entering the facility are
greeted by a rare 1906 single,
believed to have the lowest serial
number of any Harley-Davidson in
existence, plus accurate replicas of
STORY BY ED YOUNGBLOOD
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE
'MOTORCYCLE HALL OF FAME
imed to celebrate the historic
100th anniversary of the HarleyDavidson Motor Company, the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum in Pickerington, Ohio, has opened a new
exhibit entitled "Heroes of HarleyDavidson." Appropriate to the Museum's fundamental mission to recognize great motorcycling personalities,
this exhibit tells the history of the
Motor Company through the achievements, exploits and lives of the individual men and women - both inside
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so
what are certainly two of the most
famous motorcycles in the world.
Coming off the end of a ramp high
overhead is Evel Knievel's XR750
jump cycle, just like the one he used
before a crowd of 90,000 fans at
Wembly Stadium in 1975, and below it
is the iconic Captain America chopper, ridden by Peter Fonda in the 1969
motion picture Easy Rider. From
there, one enters a full-scale replica of
the 10·by-15-foot shed where HarleyDavidson was bom in the back yard of
the Davidson homestead in Milwaukee
in 1903. In this shed are hand and
machine tools of the type that might
have been used by Arthur Davidson
and Bill Harley to create their first prototype at the dawning of the age of
motorized transportation. Life-size
photographs and biographical sketches tell the stories of the four founders,
which included also Walter and
William Davidson.
Beyond the shed, twenty separate
exhibits carry the visitor through
Harley-Davidson's beginning, its
strtlggle to establish its name in an
intensely competitive market during
the teens, its emergence as America's leading motorcycle manufacturer
in the 1920s; its struggle through the
Great Depression in the 1930s, its
glory on the race track in the 1940s
