Newby Oval Site of First Indiana High School State Track and Field Meet
The Newby Oval was a famous 20,000 seat banked track velodrome used to hold great bicycle races located at West 32nd Street and Central Avenue in Indianapolis. Major Taylor, one of the United States’ best riders, was from Indianapolis and got his start at the Oval. In fact, he was so good that he was restricted to racing only when the Oval wanted a full crowd and had moved to New Jersey for more competition. It was reported that the Oval was nearly full for the first IIAA State Track and Field Meet.
The Newby Oval was built by Arthur Newby, a young man who left Monrovia, Indiana, at the age of 16 and came to Indianapolis looking for work. He found a job in a bike shop and became extremely interested in biking and, with friends James Allison and Carl Fisher, founded the Zig Zag Cycling Club. The three would skip church on Sundays and go for long rides, prompting church followers to come out of church and scorn them. Newby built the Oval at a cost of $23,000 and convinced the League of American Wheelmen to bring their National Meet to Indianapolis in 1898. The velodrome was the site of many track and field meets, football games, vaudeville shows and conventions, none of which could pay the Oval’s expenses. On August 16, 1902, the wrecking crew showed up and down came the Oval and the IIAA State Track and Field Meet site. His interest in cycling never faded and he founded the Indianapolis Stamping and Chain Company, now known as Diamond Chain Company. Mr. Newby became known as the “quiet philanthropist” for his founding contribution to Riley Children Hospital plus large grants to Butler University and Earlham College. He purchased land in Parke County, Indiana to prevent development and gave the land to the Indiana State Park System for the development of Turkey Run State Park.
Newby and friends (James Allison, Carl Fisher, and Frank Wheeler) under the creative vision of Fisher bought land on the Crawfordsville Pike at what is now Georgetown Road to build a testing motor park that became the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Dozens of companies like Marmon, Cole, National, Marion, Overland and American Underslung tested their cars there.
It is interesting to note the relationship of this group of founding members: Fisher was the flamboyant member from Greensburg, Indiana, dropping out of school as a sixth grader and moved to Indianapolis with his mother and two brothers when his parents divorced. Fisher was the “P. T. Barnum of the Automobile Age.” He promoted one of the first auto races, a 24-hour race at the Indiana Fairgrounds, which was lit by Prest-O-Lite, the first company to create gas-fired headlamps for cars. Later he would sell his one-third share to Union Carbide for several million dollars. He then developed a swamp into an exotic resort area, Miami Beach. It did not flourish at first due to the road system, therefore he would form the Lincoln Highway Commission and build the Dixie Bee Highway from Chicago to Miami Beach (the Dixie Bee is part of U.S. 41 in Terre Haute). The hurricanes of 1926 and 1929 and the stock market crash caused him to lose his second $50 million fortune. Wealthy Carl Fisher would die of cirrhosis of the liver on June 15, 1939.
James Allison dropped out of school at the age of twelve and joined his father’s company, Allison Coupon, and at the age of 18 and became the vice president after his father’s death. He then founded the Allison Perfection Fountain Pen Company and became interested in cycling and joined the Zig Zag Club. It was at the Zig Zag Club that he became friends with Arthur Newby and Carl Fisher. The three would form the Concentrated Acetylene Company and would call their product Prest-O-Lite, later selling to Union Carbide for several million dollars. Lem Trotter, a mutual business colleague, said of Allison, “Fisher was the dreamer, but Allison had the most brilliant mind of any man I ever knew. He was the industrialist.” Allison and Fisher built mansions along Cold Spring Road in Indianapolis, which is now Marian University.
