Carl Fisher, Master Promoter

By Sigur Whitaker
By all accounts, Carl Fisher was a promotional genius. Sit back and enjoy some of the tales of Carl Fisher. Some of these will probably have you scratching your head wondering if they are indeed true. Most of the stories are from secondary sources and in some cases appear to stretch the truth. I suspect that it might have started with his wife's book "Fabulous Hoosier." Throughout her life, Jane Fisher proudly promoted Carl even after they divorced. 
 
Fisher showed his inclination towards promotion at a young age.  He had a severe astigmatism and dropped out of school in the sixth grade after becoming frustrated.
 
One of his first jobs was as a “news butcher” on a railroad selling newspapers, magazines, tobacco, candy and other things. Pretty soon, he increased his sales by wearing an apron he designed which contained some girly magazines. When he thought the potential customer might be interested, he would raise the apron to let the customer peek. Since showing magazines with naked women could cost him his job if someone complained, he learned how to read people. Losing his job did not deter him. He simply went to another railroad.
 
By age seventeen, he had saved $600 and quit the news butchering business. With the money, he and his brothers, Earle and Rollo, started a bicycle repair business during the height of the bicycle craze of the 1890s. Fisher had long been fascinated with the bicycle and not only rode for pleasure but was also successful in bicycle races throughout the Midwest.
 
Seeing greater potential for profitability with the sale of bicycles than their repair, Fisher decided to reorient his business. The challenge was to get inventory to sell. Never short of confidence and charm, he decided to become the Indianapolis distributor for the Pope-Toledo Bicycle Company, the maker of the popular “Columbia” bicycle. Not having the capital to purchase inventory at the normal markup, Fisher boarded a train for Toledo, Ohio, to meet with Colonel Albert Pope. It took five days in Toledo before Colonel Pope would meet with him. When given the chance, Fisher went into his sales pitch complimenting Pope on the quality of his bicycles and pointing out that there was not a distributor of Columbia bicycles in Indianapolis. Then he made the ask. It was not for a dozen bicycles but rather for a train car full. Pope took Fisher’s list of references and two days later Pope agreed to sell them at factory cost. Returning to Indianapolis, he approached a banker and got a loan for $500 for marketing.
 
Fisher believed if he got the bicycles at factory cost, he could sell them at retail and have enough money to give away fifty of them. His friend George Bumbaugh made a thousand toy balloons which could remain aloft for hours or possibly days. He put ads in the local newspapers announcing that on a certain day, the balloons would be launched from Indianapolis. Those that found a balloon with a tag in it could claim a bicycle. The promotion was a huge success and soon, Fisher had sold his entire stock of bicycles. Fisher had his mind set on selling more than one brand of bicycles.
 
Multiple secondary sources report that Fisher went to Columbus to meet with George C. Erland, the president of a bicycle company. Fisher explained to Erland him that he wanted to distribute multiple types of bicycles. Erland, impressed with Fisher, extended a line of credit which at its peak was $50,000. Fisher was still a minor…so if Fisher defaulted, Erland would have no recourse. What interested me was that while all the secondary sources referenced Erland and the loan to Fisher, none explained which bicycle company he was involved in. I tried Newspapers.com, Find-A-Grave and just a Google search. Nada. The Columbus (Ohio) Metropolitan Library solved the mystery. George C. Erland was actually George C. Urlin, the president of the Columbus Bicycle Company. He later became a significant real estate developer and a financier.
 
With the help of his brothers, Fisher built a “giraffe” bicycle as a publicity stunt. He had to mount the bicycle from the second-story window. It achieved exactly what Fisher wanted—free publicity from the large crowd that gathered. While many books report that the bicycle was twenty-feet tall, The Indianapolis News reported in May 1895 that the wheel of Fisher’s “giraffe” machine was nine feet in diameter and that he sat 15 feet above the ground.
 
This stunt paled with his successful attempt to ride a bicycle on a tightrope strung between two buildings twelve floors above Washington Street in downtown Indianapolis. Fisher had mastered tightrope walking by stretching a rope between two stationary objects as a child. Dressed in a padded suit, he mounted the bicycle as two men held ropes which were secured to the bicycle’s handlebars. While Fisher was audacious in his promotional ideas, I think this stretches credulity despite having been reported in several books. If it attracted a large crowd, the Indianapolis newspapers (Star, News, and Journal) failed to report it. Additionally, the first “skyscraper” built in Indianapolis was the Thomas building in 1895.
 
Another Fisher promotional activity was throwing a bicycle off a building rooftop. Whomever recovered the damaged bicycle and brought it to his shop would receive a new bicycle. The police, determined to prohibit this stunt, stationed police at the doors to the business. To their chagrin, Fisher had anticipated this, and spent the night in the building. At the appointed hour, he threw the bicycle off the building and then calmly walked down the backstairs while the policemen were rushing up. He then calmly walked to police headquarters and called his business so that they could tell the policeman he was at headquarters waiting to surrender.
 
From 1893 through 1896, Fisher staged a turkey run at Thanksgiving. It was a bicycle race covering several miles. The top winner would receive a diamond ring. Others who finished the race near the top could go to the back of the bicycle shop and capture a live turkey.
 
 
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