More On J.M. Studebaker

See our earlier post on Studebaker and also on boom towns.

I should add that the transportation business evolved very fast during John Mohler Studebaker's life.

He traveled to California in 1853 in a wagon train drawn by horses. He returned to South Bend, Indiana in 1858. First he rode a stage coach to Sacramento. Then he took a paddle wheel steamer from Sacramento to San Fransisco. He took another paddle wheel steamer from there to Panama. He rode across the Isthmus of Panama in a train pulled by a steam locomotive. He took another paddle wheel steamer from there to New York City, where he visited Barnum & Bailey's Museum. He traveled to South Bend, Indiana, by train, by way of Albany, New York.

So he went from wagon train to airplane during his lifetime. When he visited San Fransisco in his old age he went by train.

Studebaker was planning to begin building airplanes when he died of a blood disease in 1917. His car company was going strong when he died.

His heirs spent the company capital on dividends during the Depression. In 1936 the company could not cover a check for about $6,000 and it went bankrupt,

Nothing to do with John Mohler Studebaker (1833-1917). He had been dead a long time when the company went bankrupt.