FOSTORIA | The Bike Shop: Frank Copley, Fostoria’s Bicycle Clubs and the First Motorcycles

Author: FFP Ai Bot

Riders on bicycles and early motorcycles outside The Bike Shop, early 1900s

FOSTORIA — A dozen men sit astride their machines on a brick street, caps pulled low, some with goggles pushed up on their foreheads. A few are on ordinary bicycles. Most are on early motorcycles, little more than heavy bicycle frames with engines bolted in. Behind them, painted on the plate glass, are the words “The Bike Shop” and the name “F.A. Copley.”

This installment of our local history series looks at the man behind that sign and at the bicycle craze that came before the automobile in Fostoria. Our main source is a 1978 history column, “Bicycling…Through the Years,” republished by the Fostoria Area Historical Society.

Quick timeline

A club on wheels

Fostoria took to the bicycle early. According to the 1978 column, the Fostoria Bicycle Club had its headquarters in the Andes Block at Main and Center, with the club’s name mounted between the second- and third-floor windows. It was a men’s club, and surviving albums show its members touring the countryside, apparently as far as the rolling hills toward Tiffin.

The Andes Block in 1913. In the bicycle club days, the club’s name hung on this building.

The column lists 32 members at an 1890 party the club gave for the ladies, a roster that included members of the Mergenthaler, Backenstos and Andes families. The Ohio History Connection holds a green celluloid card printed “1892, Fostoria Bicycling Club, a happy New Year,” with a gilt poem and a picture of a cycling couple.

A second group, the Harrison and Morton Bicycle Club, billed itself as “the only political organization on wheels in the U.S.” Its members rode high-wheelers in matching outfits and helmets to campaign for Benjamin Harrison and Levi P. Morton. The column places this in 1884, but Harrison and Morton were the Republican ticket in 1888, so the club almost certainly rode in that campaign. A photo of the club shows one member carrying a bugle, probably to signal the riders.

Frank Copley’s Bike Shop

Detail of the window lettering: “The Bike Shop,” “F.A. Copley”

By the early 1900s the bicycle had gone from a rich man’s toy to everyday transportation. The 1978 columnist, who grew up in Fostoria, remembered mill hands, a music teacher and St. Wendelin’s Father Weber, who rode a chainless, shaft-driven bicycle on his parish calls, all getting around town on two wheels.

F.A. “Frank” Copley was, in the column’s words, “the leading bicycle dealer.” His shop stood at 132 E. Center St. for many years, and the columnist bought his first used bike there. Copley also staged bicycle races for young riders and solicited prizes from local merchants. One course ran out the Findlay Road, starting at West Independence and heading west toward Arcadia.

Ohio business records list a Copley Machine Company, incorporated in Fostoria on March 22, 1906, according to the Ohio Secretary of State. We could not confirm whether it was connected to Frank Copley’s shop.

In later years Copley moved to 105 Perry St., phasing out of bicycles and into electrical work. He sold the bicycle business to Arlie K. Davis, who moved it to 230 N. Main St. Other dealers remembered in the column include Bill Leatherman on Columbus Avenue and L.O. Sprout’s Bicycle and Fix-it Shop, first in a basement under the First National Bank and later on West Center Street. Popular brands included Columbia, Pope, Crescent, Schwinn and the Star high-wheeler.

Here come the motorcycles

The photo at the top of this story captures the moment when the bicycle shop met the gasoline engine. Most of the machines lined up outside Copley’s windows are early motorcycles, with bicycle-style frames, pedals, narrow tires and small engines mounted low in the frame. The riders’ leather caps and goggles and the style of the machines suggest a date somewhere around 1905 to 1915. The riders are not identified, and the occasion, perhaps a club run or a race day, is unknown.

The full photo of riders outside The Bike Shop, c. 1905-1915 (estimated)

Shops like Copley’s were a natural home for the new machines. As the 1978 column points out, the Wright brothers, Ransom Olds and Glenn Curtiss all started in the bicycle business. Fostoria would soon build its own automobiles, as told in our companion stories on the Allen Motor Car and the Fostoria Light Car.

Do you know any of the riders in this photo, or the year it was taken? We would like to hear from you.

More from FFP: Circus Memories: When the Big Top Marched Down South Main and The “Hidden Tunnels” Beneath Fostoria.

Photo note: Photographs and images published before 1931 are in the public domain in the United States. Historical images in this article are shared for educational and historical purposes.

Sources

• Fostoria Area Historical Society, Bicycling…Through the Years (1978): https://www.fostoriamuseum.org/bicycling-through-the-years/
• Ohio History Connection, Fostoria (Ohio) subject, Fostoria Bicycle Club card (1892): https://aspace.ohiohistory.org/subjects/24895
• Ohio Secretary of State business search, The Copley Machine Company, entity 71889 (incorporated March 22, 1906): https://businesssearch.ohiosos.gov/
• Fostoria Area Historical Society, W. Center From Early Days to Now: https://www.fostoriamuseum.org/w-center-from-early-days-to-now/
• Wikipedia, 1888 United States presidential election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1888_United_States_presidential_election