August 1909 Weather

Meticulous as I am I thought it would be interesting to understand what the weather was like in Indianapolis during the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's tragic  first auto racing event.
 
Attached are the weather reports that were published on the front page of the Indianapolis Star on August 20 - 22. The race meet was held August 19 - 21. I chose the days for the weather reports because they summarize the previous day. Collecting their predictions in advance does not tell us about the weather but what meteorologists with their limited technology of the day thought would happen.
 
For the first day of racing there was no precipitation and though it is not clearly stated it was apparently sunny. The high temperature was 84 degrees Fahrenheit and the low was 60. The second day saw what looks like beautiful weather with no rain, clear skies and a high of 78 degrees. The low was 66. The final day of racing on August 21 delivered essentially more of the same - but a tad cooler - with a high of 76 and a low of 52.
 
Beginning in 1904 an interesting feature of Indianapolis Star front page weather reports for decades was the associated editorial cartoon featuring the character "Jim Crow," evidence of the racist behavior of most white Americans, government and society in general during the pre-civil rights movement era. Jim Crow was an everyday term for laws at the national, state and local level that promoted the "separate but equal" philosophy in the treatment of American citizens.
 
The fact of that the Indianapolis Star took up such a fictional character as its mascot is less an indictment of that specific publication than a commentary on the pervasive insensitivity of white Americans throughout much of the country's history. The name of this character was eventually altered to "Joe Crow" but survived into the 1960's and then was eventually eliminated altogether.
 
The creator in 1904 of the Jim Crow cartoon was Johnny Gruelle who was best known as the creator of the children's play doll Raggedy Ann. Gruelle worked as a cartoonist for several publications aside from the Star during what was a prolific career partially fueled by the energy of anger that resulted from the early death of his daughter at age 13. He was the son of the highly regarded American Impressionist painter Richard Gruelle. Father Richard was one of the famed Hoosier Group of artists of the late 19th Century.
 
Johnny Gruelle created the Jim Crow cartoon character but quickly handed it off to Homer McKee who drew the images in these attachments. McKee did it for a number of years and eventually established an advertising agency that would launch the career of the iconic ad man Leo Burnett. The Jim Crow character passed through the pen and ink of several artists in subsequent decades.