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Driving, flying, pedaling all part of history center exhibit
by Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio
February 15, 2004

The Freeway, a three-wheeled car, was developed by a Minnesota engineer during the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s. It got about 100 miles per gallon. This Freeway is on display at the Minnesota History Center. (MPR Photo/Dan Olson)

The new transportation exhibit at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul shows the state's railroad and street car history. There's a look at aviation and even bicycles. It's the exhibit's section on automotive history that contains some of the most intriguing details. Did you know the state once had dozens of car manufacturers? Did you know there was once a Farmer's Anti-Automobile Society?

St. Paul, Minn. — Once upon a time in Minnesota, a better time some might argue, there were more horses than cars. Probably more horses than people. It was the late 1800s and the drivers of horse drawn conveyances, Adam Scheer says, were encountering a growing number of horseless carriages.

Scheer, the Minnesota Historical Society curator, helped put together the History Center's new transportation exhibit. During a tour, he stops to read a quote off an exhibit sign. It's advice from the Farmer's Anti-Automobile Society for how those first car drivers should avoid spooking the horses.

	Adam Scheer

"All motorists must carry sugar to make friends with the horse. When a horse approaches the motorist must drive into the nearest meadow or forest and cover his vehicle with a camouflaged blanket," Scheer reads.

Visitors to the transportation exhibit walk through a boxcar where railroad history is revealed, pass by a wall of bicycle wheels identifying the area where visitors can learn about the state's fascination with the two-wheeler.

There's even a bit of balloon history. A boat-like anchor suspended from the History Center ceiling is from the first balloon flight over St. Paul in l857, which Scheer says ended with the balloonists landing in a chicken coop.

The section on Minnesota aviation includes a l956 advertisement seeking airline flight attendants, who at that time were called "sky girls." They had to meet rigid height and weight standards, and had to be registered nurses in case passengers took ill.

The exhibit's automotive section delves into Minnesota's extensive car culture. The state still makes vehicles in St. Paul's huge Ford plant. Longer ago, Scheer says, there were dozens of Minnesota carmakers.

We've made a lot of choices ... about how we want to get where we're going. And we wanted to make people think about the fact that those decisions bring consequences with them, and to think about those consequences. - Adam Scheer, exhibit curator

"(They were) Ma-and-pop operations, people who were carriage makers for example, and tried their hand at the automotive business, couldn't get the financing and made one or two prototypes," he says.

Rounding a corner in the exhibit, visitors encounter a freeway with ramps. A small yellow car, one of the more recent made-in-Minnesota vehicles, sits in the middle.

"This is a 'Freeway' automobile developed by a Burnsville native in the late l970s, Dave Edmonson," Scheer says.

Dave Edmonson still lives in the Twin Cities.

"(The Freeway) had three wheels, two in front and one in back," Edmonson says.

Edmonson no longer makes the Freeway. The three-wheeler was powered by a single-cylinder lawn tractor engine. The tubular frame was wrapped in a fiberglass shell.

"(It had a) single door on the left hand, it was classified as a motorcycle," Edmonson says.

The Freeway's top speed, Edmonson says, was 65 mph, and it achieved stunning gas mileage.

	Cranking up the car

"We ran six vehicles on a fuel economy test and we averaged about 102 miles per gallon," he says.

The Freeway was mechanical engineer Dave Edmonson's response to the Arab oil embargo of the l970s, when gasoline prices rose from 30 cents a gallon to a $1.20 a gallon.

He convinced family members to invest in the company, made 700 vehicles priced at $3,500 each, and sold a bunch. Orders dwindled during a bad winter, and the venture folded in the early l980s.

Collectors have snapped up the remaining Freeways. There's an electrically-powered version on display at the Minnesota History Center. Curator Adam Scheer says the exhibit attempts to show viewers the outcomes of our transportation decisions over the years.

"We've made a lot of choices from the 19th and into the 20th and now into the 21st century, about how we want to get where we're going," says Scheer. "And we wanted to make people think about the fact that those decisions bring consequences with them, and to think about those consequences."

The exhibit's timing is interesting, maybe even provocative. The state's fascination with road building is getting a big shot in the arm from massive doses of state and federal spending. At the same time, a growing chorus of voices, often led by road-weary commuters, is raising a clamor for transportation options including bus and rail.

Our history of making transportation decisions and living with their effects is part of the History Center's permanent exhibit.

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