The Esta Manthos Indian Motorcycle Collection

Marty stood among rows of motorcycles at the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History. Their frames, engines, and handlebars changed from one machine to the next, while old advertisements and photographs filled the walls around them. This gallery was about more than a famous motorcycle name. Indian began in Springfield, and for decades its machines were designed and built here. 

George M. Hendee and Oscar Hedstrom opened the company’s first factory in downtown Springfield in 1901. Hendee had been a champion bicycle racer and manufacturer; Hedstrom brought engineering skill to the partnership. At a time when motorcycles were still new and their reliability could not be taken for granted, the company worked to prove what its machines could do. In 1903, Hedstrom rode an Indian in a speed and endurance trial that helped establish its reputation.

Indian motorcycles went on to serve many different riders. People used them for travel and work, while racers tested their speed on tracks and hillsides. The company also produced motorcycles for military use during the world wars. Looking across the gallery, we could see the distance between the earliest motorized bicycles and the more substantial machines that followed as engines, frames, and expectations changed.

The collection holds more than two dozen motorcycles, including a 1904 machine designed and owned by Hedstrom, a 1912 board-track racer with its original racing tires, a 1927 hill-climber, and a restored 1929 Scout. Each represents a different part of Indian’s history. The racing motorcycles speak to the daring of their riders; the others show how a company founded in Springfield adapted its designs for changing purposes. Photographs and memorabilia add the people who made, sold, rode, and cared for the machines.

Production by the original Springfield company ended in 1953. Its story might have become scattered among private owners had Charles and Esta Manthos not devoted decades to collecting Indian motorcycles and records. They opened their own Indian Motorcycle Museum in Springfield in 1974. Charles hoped to do more than preserve the past: working with former Indian employees, he developed a prototype inspired by the 1953 Indian Chief in the hope of returning a Springfield-built Indian to production. The plan did not succeed, but the prototype became another part of the history they saved. 

After Charles died, Esta donated their collection to the Springfield Museums in 2007, keeping it together in Indian’s hometown. That decision is why we could encounter so much of the company’s history in one room. As Marty moved through the gallery, the motorcycles invited us to look beyond their polished metal to the Springfield workers, inventive minds, and determined collectors who gave them both a beginning and a lasting place in the city’s memory.