72 Cushmans stop in Marengo

MARENGO — More than 70 members of the Cushman Club of America visited the Iowa County Pioneer Heritage Museum in Marengo last week, all riding antique Cushman scooters.

The Club had a convention in Amana during the week and traveled to a different destination nearby each day, said Patricia Hinrichs of the Iowa County Historical Society.

In addition to visiting the Iowa County museum, the Club planned to visit Kinze, West Branch and Iowa City.

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“There were 72 of them here,” Hinrichs said Monday, June 16, after the group left. Well, after most of them left. One Cushman had trouble getting started again, and the owner had to do some maintenance before he could continue his trip.

The museum offered to fix lunch, said Hinrichs, but the Club said that wasn’t necessary, so the museum staff provided homemade ice cream — which they ran out of.

The Cushman Club of America is a national club with an active membership of thousands of Cushman enthusiasts dedicated to the restoration and preservation of Cushman Motor Scooters. The Club produces a quarterly magazine and, each year, hosts a national meet that includes scooter shows, rides, contests and banquets, according to Cushman Club of America.

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The Cushman scooter company was founded in 1903 in Lincoln, Nebraska, by Everett and Clinton Cushman. The company incorporated as Cushman Motor Works in 1913.

Cushman began production of a four-stroke Husky engine in 1922.

Cushman produced engines for farm equipment, pumps, lawn mowers and boats and began making Auto-Glide scooters in 1936 as a means to increase the sale of Husky engines during the Great Depression, according to Cushman Club of America.

Cushman scooters were widely used by the United States armed forces in World War II and as an alternative to automobiles before and after the war. Model 53, a popular military model from the World War II era, was designed to be dropped by parachute with Army Airborne troops and became known as the Cushman Airborne.

Other models were used on military bases for messenger services, according to Cushman Club of America. The most successful model of Cushman scooter, the Eagle, was in production for about 16 years. It resembled a motorcycle with its exposed engine and top tank.

Other Cushman models, such as the postwar "turtle back" Models 50 and 60 and the economy Highlander, used a step-through design common for scooters making it easy to operate and popular with men and women.

The oldest Cushman to visit Marengo last week was a 1946 model, said Hinrichs. Members rode in from all over the United States, from as far as Georgia and Tennessee. The youngest rider was 20, and the oldest was in his 80s.

The Iowa County museum doesn’t have a motor scooter display, said Hinrichs. “We only have what they call a Whizzer, a motorized bicycle that was popular in the United States from the 1930s to the 1960s.

“They were a fun group,” said Hinrichs. The Club’s president is from Iowa and wanted to show the Cub what Iowa has to offer.

“They all look like they have new paint,” said Hinrichs of the Cushman scooters that visited the museum. “Most of them have been fixed up a lot.”

One rider had purchased his scooter 63 years ago to the day, said Hinrichs. As a boy, he had a paper route, and he saw a Cushman scooter for sale. The owner was too tall for it. The current owner bought it for less than $400.

“He had it all rebuilt, and it’s really beautiful now,” said Hinrichs.

The Cushman riders took photos of their scooters at the old Sinclair gas station on the museum grounds, Hinrichs said.

“We always jump at the chance to show off … what we have here.”