The Sturgis Motorcycle Museum & Hall of Fame has lots of great motorcycles and memorabilia on exhibit, but we’ve also got some great stuff tucked away in our archives. This month, we thought we’d share a little piece of what’s currently NOT on display in the museum.
A couple of years ago, we were loaned a 1953 Indian Chief – which was a great addition to the museum. Along with that Chief, we were loaned quite a collection of memorabilia. In that memorabilia we found these nine Indian Pow-Wow magazines.
These little gems measure 4 inches by 6 inches, and each are about sixteen pages long. The copies we have were published from November/December of 1954 through March/April of 1956 (with one copy undated). The content of the Pow-Wow includes articles about racing, photos of riders in various states, information about law changes, ads for new models and information about the staff at Indian in Springfield, Mass.
Looking through the Pow-Wow we found lots of interesting stuff. We’ve included here the cover from the March/April 1955 edition because the cover photo is one that was taken in the Black Hills of South Dakota during a Jackpine Gypsies ride. We found some other interesting South Dakota tidbits, including the article about “Mr. Motorcycle South Dakota” who that year was Jack Hoel, son of J.C. “Pappy” Hoel (the founder of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and a local Indian Motorcycle Dealer). That article also mentions our friend Neil Hultman who rode his 1955 Indian Woodsman in races that year – that very Woodsman is on exhibit right here in the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum.
You’ll find a picture of Pappy Hoel in the advertisement for the 1955 Woodsman that we’ve included here, too. Other items of interest we chose mostly at random are Safety Tips from Indian Motorcycle Staff, a page of “Forgotten Facts” and a “Why the Indian Laughed” page – one of which can be found in almost all issues of the Pow-Wow.
We enjoyed paging through these magazines, and hope you’ll enjoy them, too.
