THE GREATEST SPECTACLE IN RACING

I know you think that 200 laps after the clinking, clanking cacophony of 40 iron behemoths, 5 to a row, roared under the red start flag of the first Indianapolis 500, Ray Harroun flew across the finish line first (above), collected his $12,000 check and became the most famous race car driver of all time, the wellspring from whom three quarters of a billion tourist dollars flow into Indiana every year. But the real winner of that first race was the promotional manic-depressive who had designed and built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. However Carl Fisher was held in such disapproval by the straight laced devout denizens of Indiana, that more than a century later they still hold their noses when singing his praises.

Carl Fisher's first wife, Jane, (he lost most Hoosier Catholics, right there) described living with Carl as “a circus. There was something going on,” she said, “something exciting going on, every minute of the day. Sometimes it was very good. Sometimes it was very bad.” His friends called him “Crip”, short for cripple because the 6^th grade drop out kept falling off his bicycle. 

Carl owned the best bicycle shop in Indiana, and was half owner of the “Prest-O-Lite” company, making headlamps for those huge, loud, clumsy, leaky, foul smelling cloud generating contraptions that had a tendency to break down, fall over, catch fire, or just turn into a one ton paper weight in the middle of the road.

As the first 500 began a huge cheer rose from the 40,000 spectators when “Happy” Johnny Aitken, drove his dark blue “National” into the lead at the first turn. Both driver and car were local productions. 

But one lap later Aitkens was passed by a “Richie Rich” racer, silk shirt wearing 21 year old Spencer Wishart (above).

Spencer was driving his personal $62,000 “Silver Arrow” Mercedes (it was actually gray. Above). It would be a triple play newspaper year for the “charismatic” Spencer. In January his millionaire father George would be on the front page, indicted for stock fraud in Canada. All spring and summer Spencer was in the sports pages as a contender in auto races. And just after the Indy 500, he would announce his engagement on the society pages.

The 41 year old Carl Fisher and his four partners had spent $250,000 building the 2 ½ mile dirt oval Speedway. The first weekend of racing in August of 1909, produced a “Roman holiday of destruction” that killed five people, two of them paying customers. Rail birds labeled the track “Fisher's Folly”, and the Detroit News observed, “The blood of the Indianapolis Speedway has probably rung the death knell on track racing in the United States.” “No good”, an Ohio paper sermonized, “can come from making a mile in 40 seconds.” 

 But auto maker and Fisher friend Howard Marmon (above) argued in a letter to the newspapers, “It was not the track or the drivers who were not ready, but the majority of the cars.” 

Except,  Carl and his partners then spent another $180,000 resurfacing the track with 3,200,000 bricks. The dozen races held during 1910 at the Speedway were safer, but ticket sales plummeted as the track's novelty wore off.  Carl decided to gamble everything on a single 500 mile race on Tuesday, 30 May, 1911 - Memorial Day.

Thirteen laps into the first race, as 27 year old millionaire “man about town” driver Arthur Greiner and his 24 year old riding mechanic Sam Dickson (above), were approaching turn three at the north end of the backstretch, a balloon tire blew on their Number 44 “Amplex” car. The wooden rim skidded on the bricks, throwing the big machine hard left, into the infield. Hitting a drainage ditch, the race car slammed to a stop and for a second stood vertically on its square radiator, the tail lifted high into the air. 

 

Since none of the drivers or mechanics were restrained in any way, Greiner flew out of the cockpit “like a shucked oyster”, taking the steering wheel with him. He claimed later, “I was perfectly conscious when we whirled through the air,” except he was the only one flying. According to the Indianapolis News, Greiner landed 25 feet away, with a fractured skull and a broken arm. Mechanic Sam Dickson (above) stayed in the car, uninjured...until, after teetering for a second or two, the car fell forward, driving Sam into the ground head first, “like a tent peg”.  He died instantly

The $50,000 prize money for the first Indy 500 attracted auto makers from all over. There were two cars in the field built by the Case Threshing Machine Company of Racine, Wisconsin. Springfield, Massachusetts sent one car from Harry Knox's factory, and two “Pope-Hartford” cars driven to the Speedway from Colonel Pope's factory. Indianapolis sent a 2 car team from the “National Motor Company” and 2  “Marmon Wasp”s,  a single seater and the other a standard two seat version,  and a “Stutz” from the Ideal Motor Company.

 There was also a pair of “Interstate” cars, manufactured in Muncie, a pair of smoke emitting 2 stroke “Amplex” cars from Mishawaka, Indiana, and a Westcott car built in Richmond, Indiana.  Detroit sent 2 “Buick” racers - one driven by Arthur Chevrolet – and 2 cars from Harry “Loizer”'s new factory.  Columbus, Ohio provided a “Firestone”,  driven by Eddie Rickenbacker.  Germany backed a “Benz” team and a “Mercedes” team. 

And Italy sent “The Beast of Turn”, a Fiat s76 (above), built to capture the land speed record and weighing in at 3,600 pounds.  All cars were required to carry a driver and a riding mechanic  to watch the oil gauge, tire wear and overtaking traffic.  However one team was an allowed an exception to the rules.

During the race the flimsy balloon tires were blowing all over the place. It took anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes to change a tire, depending on the design and the skill of the pit crew. The skills of the scoring judges was even dicier. Popular sports columnist Crittenden Marriot noted, “The workers at the great score boards...keep very bad tally on the laps.” At about lap 30 the timing wire across the front straight broke (above-right) . It was fixed but kept breaking. Said the New York Times, “It was acknowledged that the timing device was out of repair...for an hour during the race.” 

The positions of the remaining 39 cars was now determined by the 100 local nabobs named as judges. Most saw their appointments as free tickets, and showed little dedication. The manual chalk scoring boards around the track quickly diverged from each other and reality. “Motor Age” magazine was downright disgusted, saying, “There are too many cars on the track. The spectator could not follow the race.” They added the race had become a mere spectacle. Ignoring the insult, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway took to calling it's race “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” .

About the only person who seemed to know what was going on was 29 year old Ray “The Little Professor” Harroun, designer, builder and driver of the number 32, “Marmon Wasp”. Ray was a mechanical engineer by trade and temperament, in fact the primary engineer for the Marmon Motor Company and perhaps the greatest innovator in the auto industry before Henry Ford. 

Enticed back into the driver's seat by a large paycheck and a hectoring Howard Marmon, his boss, Ray recognized he did not have the fastest car, but determined to save time by saving his tires with a steady 75 miles per hour.  He carried no riding mechanic, instead borrowing an innovation used in urban horse drawn wagons – a rear view mirror (above).  Pit row denizens called it his “dumb mechanic”, but Carl Fisher allowed it over numerous protests. Marmon. after all, had defended him. 

As the race approached the midway point, (100 laps, 250 miles, 3 ½ hours) Ray had climbed up to 7^th place on some scoring boards, third on others and 10^th on a few. Then at lap 150 (approximately) he handed the yellow Wasp to his 25 year old relief driver, Cyrus Patschke (above). And Patschke hit the throttle. Said the Wasp's chief mechanic, Harry "Billy" Goetz,  “Ray paced around the pit area muttering to himself, watching every move the Wasp made.” 

Some time around lap 170 a suspension member on the Number 8 Case car, driven by 28 year old Austrian immigrant Joe Jagersberger, snapped. Somehow Jagersberger kept the car under control, but at 80 miles an hour it violently wobbled down the main stretch. Mechanic Charlie Anderson either “fell or perhaps jumped in panic” to the pavement, where his own rear wheel ran over him. Charlie started to get up when he saw another car coming at him and did the smart thing – he stayed put. 

According to the Indianapolis News, “Harry Knight (above- the number 7 car)...to avoid striking the prostrate (mechanic) skidded sideways at great speed” Knight slammed broadside into two cars being serviced at the end of pit row - which had no barrier separating it from the track. . “That several people were not killed was a mystery to the great crowd in the grand stands” said the News.

The stands in this case were the judges' stands, and almost all 100 of the spectator/jurists dropped everything they were supposed to be doing (scoring) and raced to the wreck to gawk, rubberneck and get a better view, offer useless advice, or (a few) to actually help. By the most generous judgment of the New York Times, “no one was keeping track of the timing and running order for at least (another) ten minutes.”

There seems to be general agreement that Ralph Mulford (above) was first to take the green flag, indicating a finished race. The Loizer team signaled Mulford to take an extra “insurance” lap, just in case the judges had miscounted. They had. Probably. But just which way and by how much it is impossible to say. After his insurance lap, when Mulford's Lozier tried to pull into victory circle, they found it was occupied by the Number 32, Marmon Wasp, of Ray Harroun.

The Speedway quashed all debate by immediately by declaring that Ray Harroun had won the first Indianapolis 500, while all other positions would be “under scrutiny” until morning. In the victory circle where speedway officials had directed him to park, the stoic "Little Professor" would say only“I’m tired—may I have some water, and perhaps a sandwich, please?” Then when reporters continued to shout questions at the engineer, he rasped, "It's too long a distance. It should not be repeated. This is my last race. It is too dangerous. That was the worst race I was ever in, see? Gimme something to eat.” Then he climbed out of his Wasp and wisely refused to discuss any details of the scoring until his death in 1968. His official time to cover the 500 miles was declared to be 6 hours and 46 minutes and 46 seconds. It was as good a number as any other.

Carl Fisher (above)  spent most of the 1920's promoting and building Miami Beach. He sold the Speedway to Eddie Rickenbacker in 1927. Then in October of 1929 Carl lost his fortune in the stock market crash. After decades of alcoholism, he died in Miami of a gastric hemorrhage, in July of 1939.

Ralph Mulford, was the national driving champion in 1911. He competed in the Indy 500 a total of 10 times, and never won. In fact, he never claimed to have won. At the age of 85, he eulogized the man who was awarded the race he likely won. "Mr. Harroun was a fine gentleman,”  said Ralph, “a champion driver and a very great development engineer, and I wouldn't want him to suffer any embarrassment.” Ralph pointed out that each year the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, “...send me something as a remembrance and to let me know I have not been forgotten." Ralph died in 1973.

The forgotten man of the first 500 was Cyrus Patschke (above), who “put the sting in the Wasp”   It was Cyrus who put the Number 32 in the lead. But after 7 years as one of the best “relief” drivers in America, with 3 wins, 1 second place finish and 2 thirds, he retired in 1915, to open a auto repair shop at 10^th and Cumberland streets in his home town of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, half way between Harrisburg and Reading. In 1948, a young driver stopped him coming out of a diner in Lebanon, and asked, “Say, didn't you used to be Cy Patschke?” Cy grinned and replied, “I used to be Cy Patschke, son. I used to be.” He died of a heart attack on 6 May, 1951.

Silent Film of First Indy 500

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VALLEY OF DEATH Chapter Three

I can imagine the unease felt by the technicians at Power House Number One (above), three miles below the St. Francis dam. It was the generators in this building, fed by the fall of water from the reservoir,  which was providing the first electricity to the city of Los Angeles. The needles on their gauges indicated the water level in the reservoir had been slowly dropping for hours. 

And the night shift workers who had driven around the the reservoir and over the dam in getting to work had observed a foot drop in the road along the eastern abutment of the dam (above, right). When Ace Hopewell reported for work a few minutes later he heard what he thought was a landslide somewhere in the dark near the reservoir. 

Finally, about 11:57 P.M., somebody got worried enough to pick up the phone and call the dam keeper in the smaller Power House Number Two - containing just 2 generators -  a mile and a half further below the dam. Was everything okay there? “Yes”, came the quick answer.  But the haste of the response belied its assurance. 

And fifteen seconds later, at 12:57:30, Monday, 12  March, 1928, every light in Los Angeles went out. At that instant 53 million tons of water (12 billion U.S. gallons) wrenched apart the St. Francis Dam, and released a 10 story wall of black water desperate to reach the Pacific Ocean, fifty miles away.

In August of 1924 (two months after the first bombing of the Los Angeles Aqueduct) William Mulholland began construction of a new dam at the narrowest point (above) in Francisquito (Fran-sis-kito) canyon - 50 miles north of Los Angeles.  But Mulholland consulted no geologist. in picking the site.  

Originally the unreinforced concrete gravity arch dam - held in place by its own weight -  was to be 600 across at the top and 185 feet high.  But as  political bombings continued to disrupt the flow of water from the Aqueduct,  Mulholland decided to add ten feet in height, increasing the storage capacity of the future reservoir by 2,000 acre feet.  But the old man never made an attempt to widen the base of the dam. 

What  haunted Mulholland was the ease with which the angry citizens of Owens County could cut off the drinking water to the city of Los Angles. And this reservoir was the final piece in a series of dams and reservoirs which would give Los Angeles a year’s supply of water beyond the easy reach of the Dynamite Gang in the Owens Valley.

Baily Haskell was one of the construction workers and decades later he noted to a local newspaper that in their rush to finish this final addition to the aqueduct system, Mulholland’s mangers were using gravel directly from the bed of Francisquito creek “They didn't use washed gravel”, he said. “I could see these great chunks of clay going right into the dam.”

A year later, as negotiations with the Watterson Brothers in the Owens Valley stalled, Mulholland increased the height of the dam again, this time by another ten feet, to 205 feet high. This increased the 3 mile long and ½ mile wide reservoir to 38,000 acre feet. But again no strengthening was made to the base of the dam. On March 1, 1926 water from the Los Angeles Aqueduct began to fill the canyon above the dam.

As the great Cecilla Rasmussen, writer for the Los Angeles Times, pointed out in a February 2003 column, “From the day the St. Francis Dam opened in 1926, it leaked. The folks in the farm towns downstream used to joke that they'd see you later ‘if the dam don’t break’.”  On 7 March, 1928 the intakes were closed. The reservoir was now full and the water was a mere three inches from the top of the dam.

That week drivers along the east shore road above the reservoir complained that the road was sagging near the dam’s eastern abutment.  At every step in the filling of the reservoir Mulholland personally checked the dam and declared it safe -  the last time between 10:30 and 12:30 p.m. on 11 March, 1928. Again, and for the final time, Mulholland declared the dam safe.

Less than 12 hours later it collapsed.It was not a landslide that destroyed the dam. That did not occur until after the 250,000 ton concrete structure had been wrenched apart like a child’s toy by the weight of the water that had soaked into the porous concrete.

I still have a three pound chunk of the dam sitting in my living room, and what stands out to me are the large miscellaneously shaped rocks peppered throughout the concrete, and the rough and uneven feel of it in your hand.

As the dam was twisted apart a wall of black water 140 feet high burst forth and began to scour the walls of Francisquito canyon. 

The first to die was Tony Harnischfeger (above) , the watchman, who was probably inspecting the dam he was so nervous about. Tony’s body was never found. The corpse of his girlfriend, Leona Johnson (above, right), who shared his cabin a quarter mile below the dam, was found wedged between two pieces of concrete. The body of their six year old son, Coder (above, center), was found further down stream. The copse of the youngest child, here (above) in Tony's arms, was never found.

Lillian Curtis (above, right) was startled awake in her cabin near the  Power House Number Two (above) by something.  She remembered “a haze over everything”, as her “big, husky cowboy” of a husband, Lyman (above, left) , lifted Lillian and their three year old son Danny out their bedroom window.

Lyman told her to run up the hill next to the Penstock water pipes (above)  while he went back for their two daughters, Marjorie and Mazie.  Panic drove Lillian up the almost vertical slope in the dark, along with the family dog, Spot. Then...

...just moments after the initial dam collapse (now 12:02 a.m. Tuesday 13 March) a wall of water pounded the Concret Power House to pieces, and swept the cabins and the seventy other employees and their families into oblivion.

Waist deep water pulled at her but Lillian was just able to reach the safety at the top of the ridge. Lillian and her son, and another employee, Ray Rising, were the only survivors of the seventy.

Ray had to fight to get out of his own cabin. “The water was so high we couldn't get out the front door... In the darkness I became tangled in an oak tree, fought clear and swam to the surface... I grabbed the roof of another house, jumping off when it floated to the hillside... There was no moon and it was overcast with an eerie fog - very cold.”  Where once a small village had sat, was now scraped as bare as a table top (above).  Ray lost his wife and three daughters to the flood.

Just downstream the waters engulfed the Ruiz farm (above) . Dead in an instant were wife and mother Rosaria, father Enrique and their four children, one an adult. The farmhouse and barn were wiped out as if they had never existed.

Next the tidal wave swept across the ranch and a trading post store owned by silent film star Harry Carey, before sweeping across Castaic road junction (above) where...

...a 20 foot high wave destroyed the encampment of 150 California Edison employees, killing 84 of them. The victims did not drown. They were found, mostly, caught in trees, stripped of their clothes, “battered and bruised, but didn’t show any anguish – so probably they were taken in their sleep.”

By one in the morning the reservoir was empty. “An entire lake had disappeared” in less than an hour. But the flood was just getting started. At about 1:20 a.m. the warning finally began to go out to the little farming towns ahead of the waters.

Topography squeezed the wave back to 40 feet high as it swept down the stream bed of the Santa Clarita River, plowing through orchards and farms and homes from Piru to Fillmore and through Santa Paula. It reached the ocean in Ventura just before dawn, a wave a quarter of a mile wide and “50% water, 25% mud, and 25% miscellaneous trash” according to one witness.

Along the way it had demolished at least 1,200 houses...

..and smashed 10 bridges. 

The dead, many sucked out of their beds in their sleep,  would be washing up for days as far south as San Diego and Mexico. 

The inability to build a head end reservoir had now produced dried out orchards in the Owens Valley and drowned trees in Southern California. The last known victim of the flood, although unidentified,  would be uncovered in the city of Newhall, in 1992.

How many were carried out to sea or remain buried in mud closer to home will never be known, but it seems unlikely to me that the toll of the dead could be merely the 450 officially claimed.

I would estimate it could not be much fewer than 1,000 lives, counting migratory workers and unemployed living in the fields and orchards along the river.

Mulholland began by inspecting the disaster site (above) the next morning, insisting the failure must be more work by the Owens Valley dynamiters. But the evidence and the official rush to close the matter boxed him in, until he said he “envied those who were killed.”

The corner’s jury was convened within the week, and issued its report 12 days after the disaster. 

It recommended that “…the construction and operation of a great dam should never be left to the sole judgment of one man, no matter how eminent.. .... for no one is free from error.” 

The St. Francis dam, it added, had been constructed on the site of an ancient landslide. And for seventy years that was the accepted version.

But in the late 1990’s Professor of geological engineering J. David Rogers, of Missouri University of Science & Technology reached a different conclusion. “Probably the greatest single factor", he wrote, "was the decision to heighten the dam a second time."

"Had the dam not been heightened that last 10 feet, it might have survived.” But the ultimate failure, alleged Professor Rogers, was the concrete. So rushed was the construction that it was never allowed to properly cure, and never prepared as carefully as it should have been."

 “If it had been of better quality, it (the dam) would have never fallen apart as it did. It was so filled with fractures.” The disaster’s cost was later estimated at $13 million ($156 million in 2007).

The last remaining piece of the St. Francis dam remains standing to this day, and locals have come to call it, The Tomb Stone.

A year after the disaster William Mulholland resigned and, in the words of his grand-daughter became a “…stooped and silent” recluse.

His onetime friend, Frank Eaton, died on 12 March, 1934 at the age of 78. His grandson described his last years as bitter. “…he felt he'd been made the goat for all the troubles that came to ail the Owens Valley, and because he felt he never got the proper credit for his role in the creation of the aqueduct.”Just over a year later that other dreamer, William Mulholland, passed into the valley of death at his home, on 22 July, 1935.  The Long Valley reservoir, which was finally opened in 1941, was named after a Catholic priest who had fought for peace between the DWP and Owens Valley residents; it is called (below) Crowley Lake.

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