1898 - Transportation

Transportation

The Supreme Court establishes the right of the courts to decide the reasonableness of U.S. railroad rates—and the doctrine of judicial review—in a ruling handed down March 7 in the case of Smyth v. Ames.

London's Waterloo & City Underground line opens to link the City with the mainline station. Known as "the Drain," it supplements "the Tube" that opened in 1890, will be extended in 1900 to the Angel in Islington and Clapham, extended in 1907 to King's Cross and Euston, and become an early part of the Northern line in 1926 (see Central London Railway, 1900).

Civil engineer Sir John Fowler dies at Bournemouth, Hampshire, November 20 at age 81, having helped to design London's underground Metropolitan Railways and Scotland's Forth Bridge. He was created a baronet in 1890.

Timken Roller Bearing Axle Company is founded by German-born carriage maker Henry Timken, 67, who was brought to America in 1838 at age 7, opened a St. Louis carriage works in 1855, patented a special type of carriage spring in 1877, and has just obtained a patent for a tapered roller bearing that will make his company the leader in its field.

U.S. motorcar production reaches 1,000, up from 100 last year.

French manufacturer (Pierre-) Alexandre Darracq, 42, makes the first effort to produce motorcars in quantity. A former draftsman who founded the Gladiator Cycle Company in 1891, Darracq sold that company 2 years ago, has manufactured electric cars, and now begins building voiturettes under license from Léon Bollée (see 1906).

Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company is founded at Akron, Ohio, by local entrepreneur and inventor Frank A. (Augustus) Seiberling, 38, whose family-owned agricultural-implement company has failed. He has gone to Chicago to collect unpaid bills, learned that an abandoned strawboard-factory site was available on the Cuyahoga River in east Akron, arranged to buy the buildings with a down payment of $3,500, and decides to enter the rubber-manufacturing business, initially to produce bicycle tires. The company is incorporated August 29 with a capitalization of $100,000, investor David Hill acquires $30,000 worth of the stock and becomes president, production begins November 21 with 13 workers (who earn the prevailing wage of 13¢ to 25¢ per hour for a 10-hour day) on a production line turning out bicycle and carriage tires, horseshoe pads, and poker chips. Seiberling will adopt the winged foot of the god Mercury as a symbol in August 1900 (see 1908).

The City of Portland founders off Cape Cod November 26; 157 passengers and crewmen are lost.