(Photo courtesy of the Deschutes County Historical Museum)
Bend’s first car, the 1907 Holsman, hit the road for the first time since 1959 this past Friday, June 3.The car had been housed in the Deschutes County Historical Museum (DHM) until recently when mechanic Wade Bryant volunteered his time to bring the car back to life for Deschutes County’s Centennial celebration.
“The car has been living on the second floor of the historical museum,” explains executive director of DHM Kelly Cannon-Miller. “Thankfully we have Wade Bryant in town, who has a wide variety of experience with antique cars. He had worked with the fire department on the restoration of their fire engine, so Wade said he would love to get his hands on the car and it just sort of snowballed from there.”
The Holsman Automobile Company was an early United States automobile manufacturer in Chicago, Illinois, between 1901 and 1910. The Holsman was designed more like a horseless carriage than an automobile, specifically to handle rough roads. The car first made an appearance in Bend in 1907 as a convenient way for telephone companies to work in Deschutes County.
When asked about getting the car out of the museum, Cannon-Miller explained it was an intensive process. “Moving the car from the second floor, we only have a regular elevator, we don’t have a freight elevator, so that was a high-strung day. It took four or five burly guys to lift the body of the car off of the chassis, so it came down the stairs in pieces. It was carried right out our front doors.”
The car itself is a magnificent piece of Deschutes County history, so there’s no better way to celebrate the 100th anniversary. “I think that it would be great to take that car, 107 years later, down the same pathway that it first came down to Central Oregon,” Bryant adds.
The Holsman will be driven in the Fourth of July parade in La Pine and in hopefully many parades to come this summer.
