1919 Harley-Davidson Santa Fe Trail - 2-Page Vintage 1969 Motorcycle Article

Description: Yes we combine shipping for multiple purchases.Add multiple items to your cart and the combined shipping total will automatically be calculated. 1919 Harley-Davidson Santa Fe Trail - 2-Page Vintage 1969 Motorcycle Article Original, vintage magazine advertisement / article.Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm)Condition: Good IT WAS a half century ago.The sheep herder's house wasadobe, and so was the floor. Hisone-eyed Indian wife was making tor-tillas over the mesquite fire in the littlemud fireplace. The sheepherder wassick, and neither he nor his wife spokeEnglish. But luckily for my sister andme, their young nephew did. Dark as itwas, the hut was warm and dry, and wewere made welcome.Outside, the high desert west ofSocorro, New Mexico, was enjoying oneof its beautiful summer cloudbursts. Itmade the grass and shrubs green-brought out summer flowers. But it alsomade adobe mud on the trail, good forbricks, bad for motorbikes. We hadskidded and slithered along the rutsuntil my front wheel would no longerturn. The thin little curl of smoke in thedistance off the road was a welcomesight, so we headed for it, me walking,Margaret riding.That was in September of 1919 whenmy sister was in her 20s and I was 17.We were headed from Iowa to Californiaon two new Harley-Davidsons. So far aswe know, Sis was the first woman toride a bike solo across the Santa FeTrail. Later it was named Highway 66,and now for some reason is Highway 40.If we had known what we weregetting into we never would have triedit. But adventure is in the spirit of theyoung. Margaret had never straddled amotorbike a week before we left home.She had been in Washington, D.C., on awar job. She was soft and white. Butunderneath she had muscles, and sheliked the idea of doing something un-heard of.Dad was a retired small town bankerand, like all good lowans, was moving toCalifornia. The two unmarried “chil-dren” were to go along. Both Motherand Dad seemed ultra conservative tome. I still don’t understand why theybought us fine new motorcycles andallowed us to take off. They must havehad a streak of adventure, too.When I had been offered a motor-cycle or a car to be shared with mysister, I chose the bike. That was simpleselfishness. A bike is your own, but acar must be shared. Why the others fellfor it I can’t say.So in Victor, Iowa, were deliveredlate in August, 1919, two brand newHarleys, a Twin 61 for me and a smallersport model for Sis. That was thenewest thing on wheels: opposed Twinmotor, chain drive, three speeds. Herlittle machine was a honey when new-quiet, vibrationless, plenty of power.But neither bikes nor cars had good air-filters. It just sucked up all the dust andgrit in the dirt road world, and wore outthe pistons and cylinders. A fine design,ahead of its time.We rigged up racks for the packs,bought clothing, leggings and caps andset out.First day, 80 miles to Des Moines,where we stayed with sister Marne. Sheleft a note: “Gone to store; the key isunder the doormat.” No respectableburglar in Iowa in 1919 would havethought of breaking that code.Over rough and hilly dirt roads wewent to Lincoln, Nebraska, and thenheaded southwest for Colorado Springs.Much of western Kansas and easternColorado had been plowed and plantedto wheat in the first effort of ourcountry to feed the world. It must havebeen the beginning of the dust bowlmade infamous in later years. The farm-ers were hauling their wheat to market,and we rode through the dust churnedup by the big iron wheels of theirmule-drawn wagons. This dust was asfine as talcum and seemed bottomless.It was hard to ride in, too thick tobreathe, gritty in the mouth and madeblack tears. But it was soft to land inwhen we took a spill, which was often.We went south from ColoradoSprings, heading for Pueblo, Waltzen-burg and Trinidad. In southern Colo-rado we were caught by dusk and verybad roads. There was a cattle ranchhouse, and we asked for lodging. With illgrace, the wife of the rancher allowed usto sleep on cots in the basement of anew home they were building. So itturned out OK, two fine cots and ahearty breakfast in the bunkhouse withthe cowpokes, who were shy and polite.1 don’t remember whether the rancheraccepted payment.Next morning down the line the roadwas being resurfaced. The bumps, rutsholes and dust were beyond the limitedclearance of Margaret’s little machine.Here we gave up and at Waltzenburghired a truck to haul us about 12 milesto the end of the roadwork. That wasthe only bit of the trip where themachines were hauled.Raton Pass in 1919 was gravel, rock,steep and narrow-really just two deepruts graded out of the mountainside.The steepness was no sweat, but thedeep and stony ruts were hard going. Inearly got mine on one of the manyblind corners. Marg was on ahead, ridingin the right-hand rut like a lady. Idecided it would be easier to ride theoutside ledge of the cliff on the smoothleft side. But along came a car! Thedriver cut left-bless his reflexes—andwe passed English style. Believe me, Igot back on my own side of the road,even though there was no more trafficthat morning. We got down to Raton allright and found the usual little wildwest hotel.Our trip west took us through LasVegas, N.M., and mostly 1 remember thebitter water. It was so alkaline a strangerhad trouble getting it down and keepingit down. It explains why the name“Sweetwater” is a favorite in the oldwest.On the way to Santa Fe we had amountain summer rainstorm. 1919 mo-torbikes had small hard tires and minehad close-fitting fenders, like a bicycle.It was not a good mudder. Less than 10miles from Santa Fe we were in deep,muddy trouble. Along came a couple offellows in a big car and they offeredtheir help. We put the bikes in arancher’s barn and rode on into SantaFe in style.Next day we rode a train back toGlorietta, got the bikes and rode themin.Santa Fe was a delightful Spanishtown. A railroad telegrapher rushed upto the town square to greet us. He was aboomer who had ridden west on anIndian (bike, that is). I spent the eve-ning strolling the square with him andogling the strolling senoritas. Marg had adate, despite her khaki clothes, with oneof our college boy rescuers.On the road from Santa Fe to Albu-querque, we were confronted by amountain stream. We waited a while tolet the engines cool so the chilly waterwould not crack anything. First I rodeMarg’s bike across very carefully. Shewaded and hopped from rock to rock.Then I went back and took my bruteacross with a flourish. I flourishedenough water so that the motor died onthe opposite bank. Marg had riddenaway, busy with her own problem ofstaying on top. I cranked and I cranked.I wiped the spark plugs and crankedsome more. After what seemed foreverin that desolate spot I looked around,and here were two young Indian mencoming across the stream. I don’t:,7~ . - ..---------‘—r-------reckon I had seen a real Indian before.One had a regular hair bob, and a bandto hold it down. He said something like“Poco tempo?” I gestured lack of un-derstanding, and he gestured did I wanta push? I did and they did. The en-gine quickly fired and away I went.Along the Santa Fe trail, we occasion-ally saw Indians and their hogans,wagons and stock. First you’d see ahorse or two. Then maybe a wagon.Then, if you looked carefully, youmight be able to follow a little plume ofsmoke down to the rounded roof of ahogan. Same color as the country, al-most invisible.Albuquerque was a rather interestinglittle city in those days. There wereplenty of small streetcars being run bymotorwomen and conductresses. Thatwas because of the shortage of menduring the war.Apparently the high western countrywas having lots of rain that August andSeptember. We were told we could notgo straight west to Gallup-washouts.We were routed about 60 miles south toa tiny hot village named Socorro. It wasbuilt around the usual town square,typically Mexican. From there we wentwest toward Magdalena. We found Mag-dalena a good enough cattle and sheeptown. Just a nice little trading center,way out in the wild west.The next day we were caught inanother rain, in adobe soil. Pretty soonmy front wheel stopped turning, and 1stopped going. Marg’s newly-designedmodel had wide, more or less flatmudguards, and she could keep going ina slippy, slidy way. But we both werevery wet.Then it was we saw a welcome curl ofsmoke coming from a house not too farfrom the trail. We headed for it, Margriding, me walking. We went past agalvanized iron shed to a very smalladobe house. Inside there was a Mexicanshepherd, sick in bed, his one-eyedIndian wife, some kids and dogs, and,saints be praised, a young nephew of thefamily who could speak English. Wewere made welcome. It was good to getin out of the rain. We were offeredfood, I don’t know what, but wecouldn’t bring ourselves to eat from thefamily pot. The sheepherder and familywere too immersed in their own miseriesto take offense, but maybe the youngman understood. I don’t know.We were given permission to sleep inthe shed. It was half full of sheepskins,along with a big bag of rice and otherprovisions. When the rain let up I triedto cook some rice in a tin can over abonfire. It didn’t cook and we had nosalt. We passed the night on the boardfloor, each rolled in a blanket.The next morning the trail was dryenough so we could pry the mud out ofmy wheels before it turned to brick. Wethanked our hosts and headed westthrough Springville.Half a century ago, the natives calledthe Santa Fe trail “a good naturalroad.” It was natural all right. Verylittle of it had ever seen a road grader;just two deep ruts wound around rocks,bushes and a few trees in a rathergeneral direction of travel. This wasopen range land, no fences. At someplaces you could see parallel ruts madeby many a caravan of covered wagons,and abandoned when they got too deepfor comfort. You could choose yourown rut, but had to be careful not tolose sight of the best-traveled pair andget lost.In those days, all motorbikes hadfolding footboards instead of pegs. Theruts folded ours a good bit of the time,sometimes catching Marg’s foot inside.Painful, but she couldn’t seem to get herleg out of the way in a spill, and weboth spilled about once a day. Some-times I just let my legs dangle. Notelling when you might need one.There are some interesting and color-ful mud cones near the Petrified Forest.They resembled little volcanoes. I’venever been able to find them since, sothey must be off the improved roads.They were pink, blue and ochre, of allsizes up to maybe a hundred feet.We rejoined the main trail at Hol-brook and headed for Flagstaff. Itseemed like quite a town to us after ourtour of all the villages, and we had goodfood and a good hotel with a wideveranda on the main street.West of Flagstaff the road was newlygraded and graveled; it seemed Like aboulevard to us. We could speed rightalong, but this was cow country, whichled to my worst spill. When cattleblocked the road, it was my practice tocharge them, yelling and causing theengine to backfire, so they would takeoff. Only trouble was one young ladyrefused to be intimidated. She just puther head down and prepared for battle,which was not in my plan. So I used myrear brake, and went into a lovely skidright at her horns. She left, but I wasdown, and a good bit of pants and skinwere donated to the gravel. While I waslying there enjoying the pain of freshlyground joints, a beautiful new Romersailed by, heading west. No offer ofhelp, no sympathy expressed. That wasunusual in those days. The guy becamea neighbor of ours in Glendale. Hewould be about 110 now, and I trust hehad an unpleasant passing.The road was pretty good all the wayto Kingman. Great little hills east ofKingman-fun to fly over and luckily nocars or cows appeared suddenly.But the trip down toward the Colora-do River to Needles was plain Hell.There was deep, loose sand and gravel inextremely hot September weather withno shade or water. We found a littlerefreshment stand near Oatman, and adrink of orange pop seemed like salva-tion. We had never thought of canteens.After that, we tackled the desert longbefore sunrise. When the desert suncomes up, it hits you in the back of thehead like a brick. A tougher day wenever had. We got to Daggett and triedto go on that night by Prestolite. But wejust couldn’t see the trail well enough tokeep balanced.A few miles out of Daggett we saw alight about a thousand feet off the road.We rode our machines into the brushand started walking toward the light.Here was the house of a section boss ofthe Santa Fe Railroad. He greeted uswith kindness and sympathy, fixed ustwo cots with clean sheets and pillowcases, and in the morning, fixed us crispbacon, fried eggs and buttered toast forbreakfast. A fine gentleman. Wish I hadkept his name so I could put a wreathon his grave.We’ll never forget the first Californiablacktop highway we found on the westside of Cajon Pass. It was like flying-heavenly! Of course it didn’t take longto cover Foothill Blvd, to Los Angeles.We came through the Broadway tun-nel and motored south on a strangelydeserted street. People lined the curband we got an occasional cheer as wemotored along. This seemed pleasantand no more than fitting. But aboutEighth St. a cop directed us off Broad-way, so we racked up and went back tosee what the fuss was about. Well, itturned out the fuss was about a mannamed Woodrow Wilson, top hat andall. We had innocently slipped into thevanguard of his triumphal entry to thecity. 16745

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End Time: 2025-01-26T13:06:57.000Z

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