0 Our Year in Review: 2014

by Nancy DeWitt
© Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum

This was another exciting and rewarding year for the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum. We received some prestigious awards, celebrated our 5th anniversary, and retained our rating as the #1 Fairbanks visitor attraction on TripAdvisor. In February we were awarded the AACA Plaque for Outstanding Achievement in the Preservation of Automotive History by the Antique Automobile Association of America. We are honored that the AACA recognized not just our commitment to preserve and exhibit antique vehicles, but also the effort we have dedicated to researching, archiving, and sharing automotive history--including through this blog.

Other notable highlights from 2014 include:

• We updated our display of large-format photographs featuring scenes from Alaska's early motoring days and produced a printed guide to the museum's photo exhibit.

• We opened a new exhibit titled Extreme Motoring: Alaska's First Automobiles and Their Daring Drivers. This display about the first autos in the Territory and the hardships faced by their drivers was featured in Alaska Air Magazine, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Museums Alaska newsletter, ClassicCars.com, PrincessLodges.com, and several television and radio channels.

• Due to high interest and positive feedback, we continued our "Beauty and the Bird" feathered hat exhibit. We also added several new fashion displays to the galleries.

• In June we hosted the 3rd biennial Alaska Midnight Sun Cruise-In at Wedgewood Resort. Despite rainy weather, we had excellent participation from car owners from around the state, a dry cruise to the Salmon Bake, and a good audience turnout for the car show before the skies opened that afternoon.

• Several new acquisitions were added to our collection, including a 1905 Franklin and 1910 Kelsey. We stabilized our 1915 Mack truck and put it on display outside the museum. Our docents constructed a replica of the first car to win an organized race in Alaska, a Ford Model T racer.

• Record rainfall in Fairbanks prevented us from exercising many of the museum cars, but we did manage to get several out on the road, even during December. We showed our 1911 Ford Model T depot hack and 1932 Chrysler at the annual Vernon L. Nash Antique Car Club of Alaska show and drove our 1919 Pierce-Arrow in the annual Golden Days Parade.

• We entered our 1917 Owen-Magnetic in the Pacific Northwest Concours d'Elegance in Tacoma in September. We were pleased to take home the Best in Class trophy in the Antiques class. Congratulations to Al and Paul Murray for their fine work on this unique car.

• We produced a new coloring book about Alaska automobile pioneer Bobby Sheldon. The book was illustrated by Fairbanks artist Sandy Jamieson and authored by our historian, Nancy DeWitt.

• Brad Dietrich joined our team as a mechanic, providing much-needed assistance to manager Willy Vinton. As always, we had fantastic help from our dedicated group of docents.

• We rescued the remains of the original Fageol safety coach that was used by the Mt. McKinley Transportation Company in what is now Denali National Park.

• Staff represented the museum as several events, including the National Association of Automobile Museums annual conference in Los Angeles, Scottsdale Auction Week, Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance, Bakersfield and Hershey swap meets, and Museums Alaska Conference in Seward.

• We expanded the selection of items in the museum gift shop, including vintage-inspired jewelry, retro hats, and new t-shirt designs.

• Our book, Alaska's Fountainhead Collection: Vintage Treads and Threads, was updated for a second printing and will go on sale in 2015.

Thank you for another great year!

Coming to Fairbanks to see the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum and other area attractions? Support the museum by staying right here at Wedgewood Resort. 

Detail: Our Year in Review: 2014

0 Replica of Alaska's First Winning Race Car

by Willy Vinton
© Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum

The replica we've been building of Bobby Sheldon's first race car is almost finished, and the crew that has been working on it took it out yesterday for a spin.

Most of the parts that we used to build this replica were ones I gathered from around the state, so all the parts are of Alaska origin. A good portion came from the Nome area. Nome had a Ford dealer in the early days, and had lots of unsold new parts as well as a large assortment of used items. 

Long-time Fairbanks resident George Clayton flew for Wein Airlines, and he would collect and haul all kinds of items back to town from various villages. George always kept a good inventory of what and where the items originated. He would love to talk about them but would never sell any! Prior to his passing, though, he held an auction and a good amount of his Ford parts were sold to Bruce Campbell in Anchorage. Bruce passed all his collection of Model T parts on to me, and this is where most of the pieces came from for this project. We are grateful that George Clayton collected and saved these parts, and also thank Bruce for allowing me to be able to keep them in circulation to help others with their projects. If you need any T parts, let me know.

Photo of Bobby Sheldon before winning the first
automobile race in Fairbanks in 1917.
Photo courtesy of Frances Erickson

We still need a hood from a Model T to complete the replica, so if you have an old “rough” one, please get in touch with me.

Many thanks to the gang of docents that have been involved in the building of the replica from old and sometimes rusty pieces that I hauled in to the museum. Watch for this fun car driving around Wedgewood Resort this summer.




Coming to Fairbanks to see the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum and other area attractions? Support the museum by staying right here at Wedgewood Resort. All guests receive half-price admission to the museum!

Detail: Replica of Alaska's First Winning Race Car

0 Gift Shop Update

by Nancy DeWitt
© Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum

During the planning stage and first years for our museum, I had the good fortune to visit a number of other car museums in the United States. One of my tasks was to check out their gift shops and find out which items were popular sellers. Alas, many of these were too area- or brand-specific for our shop, such as Route 66 signs, Duesenberg coffee-table books, die-cast models of 50s and 60s cars, Bugatti trading cards, and fuzzy dice.

So, we set out to find items that were more closely related to our museum's artifacts, and to create products that you wouldn't find in other stores. Our most popular items are our book, Alaska's Fountainhead Collection: Vintage Treads and Threads, and postcards featuring our cars. The success of our book has encouraged us to produce others. We'll soon have for sale a guide to the museum's photograph collection, and a coloring book about Bobby Sheldon illustrated by Fairbanks artist Sandy Jamieson. This winter we also hope to produce books on Alaska automobile history and our historic fashion collection.

This year we expanded our selection of reproduction vintage hats, which quickly became hot sellers--especially the stylish cloches. Even ladies in the Red Hat Society can find something here!

T-shirts and ballcaps remain popular with our visitors. This year we added three new silk-screened designs, plus some women's shirts featuring our White Steamer and a Packard in Swarovski crystals.









We've had copper ornaments of our Stanley Steamer, Model T (with Santa!), and Argo electric car custom made. You can also find custom bookmarks, lapel pins, mints, mugs, onesies, keychains, and magnets featuring our cars, and earrings made of jewel beetle wing cases like the decorations on one of our vintage coats.

For fun, we have a very popular book about the little Abernathy boys, who drove a Brush automobile cross country in 1910, and a selection of coloring books, paper dolls, model cars, and books on fashion.

Our most recent arrival is a shipment of vintage-inspired Grandmother's Buttons jewelry, made with 100-year-old buttons (below). GB jewelry has been sold in places like Anthropologie, Lord & Taylor, the Palace of Versailles, and The Smithsonian. We carry other jewelry too, including crystal car brooches by Lauren Spencer, Model T earrings, and pieces by Harlow.













We don't have an on-line store, but if there is a book, shirt, cap or other item you'd like, just call us at 907-450-2100 with a credit card and we can ship the item(s) to you. Better yet, stop in the museum soon for some shopping. In mid-September we will switch to winter hours and will only be open on Sundays.

Coming to Fairbanks to see the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum and other area attractions? Support the museum by staying right here at Wedgewood Resort. All guests receive half-price admission to the museum!

Detail: Gift Shop Update

0 Australian Builds Reproduction of Alaska's First Car

by Nancy DeWitt
© Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum

Don Langley of New South Wales, Australia, recently finished building a replica of Robert Sheldon's 1905 runabout. The Sheldon car was the first automobile built and driven in Alaska, and is on display in our museum,courtesy of the University of Alaska Museum of the North. Don's story is a fun one, and we appreciate that he allowed us to share it.

In 2012, Don had just finished building a Daimlan motorbike and wanted to build a four-wheeled vehicle. He found the story about Bobby Sheldon's car on the internet, which piqued his interest. "He was my kind of guy," said Don. "And to make that car, without ever having see a car--only pictures--far less driven one, was a marvelous achievement. I figured I could do that also. I would make a replica of his car using only a picture.

"Being an old chippy (woodworker), the chassis and engine compartment presented no problems and I made those components as close to possible to the dimensions given to me by Willy (Vinton). The engine is a Tecumseh 13 HP from a ride-on-mower and the differential, with the built in gear box, likewise. The axle assembly incorporated a four forward and reverse gears, a disc brake component and a main drive pulley for a V belt. To the engine (it had a vertical shaft) I fitted a centrifugal clutch, with V belt drive pulley.

"In the engine compartment I fitted a vertical steering column in a steel frame, a fuel tank, and battery compartment. The steering tiller works well and it is light to steer when moving. As for carbide lamps for headlights, I found such items impossible to acquire with having to mortgage my home, so I found some gas headlights which looked similar.

"The seating was a bit of a problem. Bar stools of satisfactory shape were not available. So I made a frame and upholstered it myself. It does not conform exactly to the original one but it was the best I could manage.

"The wooden wheels I designed and made myself, although I have no lathe, so a friend turned the spokes for me on his. I fitted steel rims to the perimeter, shrinking them on, and then glued solid rubber to the steel rim. The wheels look a bit chunkier than on the original car but I did that on purpose."

The project took Don over eight months to complete, and he drove it just prior to his 80th birthday. He named the car Isabella in honor of his wife Isabel, who graciously agreed to all the time and costs involved. We have never been able to determine the name of "the girl" for whom Sheldon built the car to impress. But, there was a girl in Skagway back then named Belle Everest and Sheldon did mention his girl was "the belle of the town," so maybe Don is on to something here!

Don admits the car isn't an exact replica and refers to it as a "Mark II Sheldon." A lack of information on details like the original transmission, locating items such as the same barstools and buggy wheels Sheldon salvaged, and limitations of time and money make building an exact replica impossible. Plus, Don enjoyed doing what Bobby Sheldon did--scrounging for local and readily available materials and adapting them to suit or making them himself.

Still, Don has built a great reproduction of the Sheldon car--AND it runs! Don sent us a video of it being driven and we will post it on our YouTube Channel soon. Many thanks to Don for letting us share what we think is a "marvelous achievement."

Coming to Fairbanks to see the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum and other area attractions? Support the museum by staying right here at Wedgewood Resort. All guests receive half-price admission to the museum!

Detail: Australian Builds Reproduction of Alaska's First Car

0 New Museum Exhibit: Extreme Motoring - Alaska Style!

by Nancy DeWitt
© Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum

Moving in the 1921 Daniels
before opening day.

The Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum has an exciting milestone approaching. On June 1, 2009, we opened our museum to the public. In those five years we have experienced a lot of growth, gained many new fans, and expanded our collections--especially our historic clothing collection. While part of our museum's focus has always been on Alaska's automotive history, this year we are taking this theme a step further in celebration of our five-year anniversary.


On June 1, we will open a new exhibit titled "Extreme Motoring: Alaska's First Automobiles and Their Dauntless Drivers." Our Alaska Gallery will feature original Alaska cars, including the very first automobile driven in the Territory, as well as examples of the some of the first automobiles in Alaska. Some of these include the 1905 Sheldon, 1906 Pope-Toledo, 1907 White Steamer, 1908 Brush, and 1910 Chalmers-Detroit. New signage about the cars' histories and first owners will accompany each vehicle.

Alaska State Library P228-279

Our historic photograph exhibit is being updated with more photos of Alaska's first cars and the hardships encountered by their drivers. We are also creating new interpretive panels to tell the stories of the most adventurous of our pioneering motorists. You'll be able to learn more details about Bobby Sheldon and the runabout he built in Skagway in 1905, and Martin Itjen's "street cars"--accompanied by actual recordings of these men. We'll have an exhibit on Sheldon's pioneering drive between Fairbanks and Valdez in 1913, with new photographs provided by his daughter, Frances Erickson. Other exhibits will highlight Alaska's first motor stage drivers, Valdez's role in the 1908 New York-to-Paris Race, Charles Percival's transcontinental drive that took him to Skagway and over the White Pass in 1911, the history of the Valdez-Fairbanks Trail (now called the Richardson Highway), the first automobile races in Fairbanks, and the unusual snow vehicles Alaskan pioneers built for winter travel.

Our popular Sourdough Roadhouse exhibit, where visitors can dress up in old-time clothing and climb into a 1910 car for photos, is staying put but we've added more children's clothes to the "outhouse closet." Speaking of children, we're building a new play table where they can construct a roadhouse and drive toy cars between Fairbanks and Valdez.

Sandy Jamieson sketches the 1908 Brush.

On top of all of this there will be new additions to our audio tour and clothing exhibits. Later this summer we'll release a new coloring book about Bobby Sheldon's adventures, featuring whimsical illustrations by Fairbanks artist Sandy Jamieson.

"Extreme Motoring: Alaska's First Automobiles and Their Dauntless Drivers" will run through March 31, 2015 and is free with museum admission. If you are visiting from out of town, we hope you will choose to stay at Wedgewood Resort, our exhibit sponsor and home to Bear Lodge and the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum. Hotel guests receive half-price admission to the museum, VIP access to museum tours, discounts on passes and a free shuttle to the University of Alaska Museum of the North, complimentary WiFi, and access to other resort activities, including our private nature reserve. Plus, you might get to see one or two of the museum cars motoring right past the hotel entrance!

Detail: New Museum Exhibit: Extreme Motoring - Alaska Style!

0 Pope-Toledo Automobiles in the Far North

by Nancy DeWitt

In August of 1908, a Pope-Toledo touring car arrived in Fairbanks on the Steamer Cudahy. It would be the first automobile to be driven on the streets of this Gold Rush town, but it was not the first Pope-Toledo to arrive in the far north. In 1907, two Pope-Toledos were imported to Dawson City, Canada by entrepreneur Stanley Scearce and roadhouse owner Captain Hubrick. The New York Times noted that Hubrick’s 40-hp auto, called the Red Devil, was kept busy all summer ferrying miners for $10 a ride. Scearce’s 1906 Pope-Toledo (also dubbed the Red Devil in one article) was used as a taxi on the frozen Yukon River during the winter of 1907-08, and made at least one run to Alaska’s Forty Mile River.

Photo courtesy of the Pioneer Museum and Joan Skilbred

Photos indicate that the first Pope-Toledo in Fairbanks was a 1907 Type XV Touring. Owner David Laiti had it on the road by August 6, causing much excitement among the townspeople. It only took 24 hours for the big maroon car to earn the nickname of—you guessed it—the Red Devil. Laiti immediately began an automobile stage to Fox and also carried excursion parties around town. By April 1909 the Pope-Toledo had been acquired by garage owner Jack Baird, who continued to use it for a passenger service to Fox. Dave Courtemanche purchased the Pope-Toledo later that year and put it to work carrying passengers between Fairbanks and Ester.

Photo courtesy of Frances Erickson

A second Pope-Toledo—a big Type XII touring car with a beautiful Roi de Belge body—was the eighth automobile to arrive in Fairbanks. It was one of the original Pope-Toledos from Dawson (likely Hubrick’s auto shown above), but it’s not clear who imported it or when. By October 1911, Robert “Bobby” Sheldon was using it to take passengers on local excursions, and we have two photographs of him with the Pope-Toledo taken in March of 1912. Interestingly, Sheldon never mentioned the Pope-Toledo or his early Fairbanks taxi service in any of his interviews. Likely he sold the Pope-Toledo not long after he purchased his first Ford Model T in 1913. Fred Lewis, its next owner, planned to convert it into a truck. Both of the Fairbanks Pope-Toledos were still here in July of 1922, but that is the last record we have of them.

Fewer than 10 Pope-Toledo touring cars survive today. So far we have located ones in California and Oklahoma, and hope that some day one of those will migrate north to Alaska.

Detail: Pope-Toledo Automobiles in the Far North

0 First Automobile in Alaska?

by Nancy DeWitt

We love telling the story about how young Bobby Sheldon built his runabout in 1905, but was this truly the first automobile in Alaska?

Several months ago I came across a story about the first attempt to reach Dawson City by automobile--in 1900. Now, the only way an automobile could get to the Klondike then was either by a Yukon River sternwheeler or a train ride from Skagway over the White Pass and Yukon Railroads--both of which require travel through Alaska. Intrigued, I uncovered the following details.

The expedition was led by E. Janne de Lamare of Paris, who had already traveled to the Klondike twice before. Joining him were E. Crom and Raphael Merville, also of Paris. According to the New York Times, they had "a special vehicle...constructed for the purpose, and is of an extraordinarily heavy pattern. The automobile is specially arranged so that the front wheels can be transformed into sled runners, while the pneumatic hind wheels can be replaced by spikes. The automobile will pull a sledge behind it on the ice." It weighed 450 lbs and was powered by a 5-HP gasoline engine.

1898 Leon Bollee Voiterette on display
at the Gilmore Car Museum

A "motor-tricycle" was also shipped from France for the trip, a 3-HP Leon Bollé Voiturette. Both vehicles were transported to Skagway by steamship, and then by rail to Canada's Lake Bennett, the starting point for the planned 640-mile drive to Dawson. As best I can tell, only the voiturette attempted the drive from Lake Bennett, accompanied by an oxen team pulling their gasoline supply on a sled. After enduring extreme cold, overflow, snow drifts, broken parts and a fire, they were thwarted by an early thaw on the Fifty-Mile, less than 100 miles into their journey. They detoured south to Atlin, arriving on April 4, where they made repairs and drove back to Lake Bennett. Lemare apparently shipped the heavier vehicle back to France, while a 1904 article in the Dawson Daily News claims that his voiturette was eventually brought north to Dawson City and abandoned. This photo does appear to be the automobile in Dawson.

A screen shot from the Motor-Car Journal,
Vol. 2. January 19, 1901

Do either of LeMarre's vehicles qualify as "the first automobile in Alaska?" I would say the answer is yes if they traveled under their own power from the dock to the rail station in Skagway. But what if they were pushed, or crated (perhaps even disassembled) and transported to the train by wagon?

There are further references to automobiles in Dawson from 1901 on, and I'm researching the possibility that an automobile was shipped to Valdez in 1903. Any of these might dispel the claim that Sheldon's was the first automobile in Alaska, but there is little doubt that his runabout was the first automobile built here.

Detail: First Automobile in Alaska?