DARING FEATS AT AUTO DERBY
One hundred years ago America was experiencing the "Roaring Twenties," a period of economic prosperity, cultural change, and social rebellion in the United States. It is characterized by the rise of jazz music, flappers, and the defiance of Prohibition, ultimately ending with the stock market crash of 1929. What was it like in Seymour, Wisconsin? How did your ancestors live? The next several pages provide an insight into life in Seymour through the eyes of the Appleton Post-Crescent and the Green Bay Press-Gazette
DARING FEATS AT AUTO DERBY
Crowd of About 5,000 is Thrilled by Federated Flier at Seymour Fair Grounds
By F. Winsey Special to Post - Crescent
September 26, 1925
A huge crowd gathered at the fairgrounds to experience the thrills of auto polo and the death defying feats of the Federated Fliers. "Play to win, regardless of injury to the other fellow," is the slogan of auto polo, proclaimed an area paper, a full decade into a sport that combined the delicate ballet of a demolition derby with the terrifying prospect of being ejected and then run over, perhaps intentionally, by the other team. "Owing to the very frequent need of a physician," the article continued, "each set of players has a doctor and a nurse as a part of its outfit, both of whom are sometimes needed when a player has been seriously injured."
If that wasn't enough to fill your thrill bucket for the day, look to the sky and view three airplanes in the midst of acrobatic maneuvers often with daredevils hanging from the wings. For a closer look wait for the parachutists, hanging below a billowing white cloud, to land on the track dangerously close to the grandstand. Fun times in Seymour 100 years ago.
Seymour - Five thousand persons from Green Bay, Appleton, Kaukauna, other cities, villages, and rural areas were drawn to Seymour Sunday afternoon to see Federated Fliers under of the auspices of the Seymour Fair Association perform on the fairgrounds and each visitor was well paid in the thrills department.
In the auto polo games, contending cars driven by experts shot in and out and backward and forwards with equal speed. Frequently they locked rear wheels or grappled in some other way in a struggle for clear way to the ball. Several times a car passed over the exposed motor or a axle of its rival. One car bumped hard by another rolled over twice and lay bottom side up with its rear wheels still spinning. Three cars turned turtle as a result of stiff bumps but were righted promptly and sent in the game by the drivers, none the worse for bump or roll.
Flames shot up from the fuel supply of an upturned car. When righted it was returned to the game still blazing. So skillfully were they driven the cars grappled, tugged, wrestled, plunged and sprinted like players in a football game. Heavy steel hoops prevented injury to the occupants when the machines turned over.
With the rattle similar to machine guns, six motorcycles in two mile, four mile, and five mile races, kicked up a screen of dust that over hung the track as a dense cloud almost concealing the contestants as they shot around the track at the rate of nearly a mile a minute.
Up in the air as a fitting sequel, to the afternoon program were three airplanes sailing abreast in high levels or plunging downward in all
spins. They lunge into back somersaults, exposing performers in daredevil stunts on the extremities of wings or dropping men from dizzy heights clinging to parachutes as life preservers. They completely satisfied the desire of the great crowd to see extraordinary feats performed by fearless actors in the upper region.
One of the most interesting and least dangerous numbers on the program was a game of automobile push ball in which two automobiles on each side were used to bump a ball eight feet in diameter down the field to the goal desired or to obstruct its course. The Seymour band filled up the gaps in the program with appropriate music. Officers of the fair association assisted in assembling and handling the large crowd.