Lawrence Hall’s 15 minutes of fame isn’t over … at least not quite yet. But for a time during World War I, Hall was front page news. While his curious chain-driven Hall Cyclecar is barely a historical footnote today, his sudden rise was once the talk of Waco.
Hall begins appearing in the Waco newspapers in December 1911, both in connection with his Hall Cycle and Plating Co. and the couple’s very active social life in the city. Mrs. Hall (whose first name, unfortunately, is never mentioned) regularly hosted (or attended) a variety of teas, showers, concerts and bridge parties.
As for husband Lawrence, he had a knack for media attention. One article details a Hall-sponsored motorcycle race in Gurley Park featuring the new McLennan County Motorcycle Club. Alas, when all three motorcycles experienced unexpected breakdowns, the race was prematurely cut short. Undeterred, the races continued for several more years and Hall Cycle and Plating Co. regularly bought quarter-page advertisements offering their motorcycles and bicycles for sale.
Hall rode as well as sold his cycles. A newspaper articles from June 1912 recounts his adventures on a “Flanders 4” motorcycle in a dramatic race against a Katy railroad train loaded with day-trippers from Waco to the small town of Elgin. Hall won the race, covering the 101 miles in 207 minutes, just beating the train to the Elgin station.
But at some point, between operating the motorcycle shop and racing his bikes, Hall devised an idea to combine a large motorcycle with a small automobile to create his “Cyclecar” as a lightweight and relatively inexpensive alternative to regular automobiles. To make that idea a reality, the vehicle was built around a four-cylinder, air-cooled 18-horsepower engine.
In the Nov. 23, 1913, edition of The Times-Herald, under the headline “Waco to Have an Automobile Factory: Lawrence Hill to Engage in Manufacture of Hall Cyclecar — Something Entirely New,” Hall was cited as having constructed “an ideal miniature automobile.” The vehicle “combined the best features of automobiles” and Hall was said to have “perfected a machine which will fill long-felt need.” Vehicles of this nature, the article claimed, had been a “sensation” in Europe. Hall stated that he’d begin manufacturing the cyclecars just as soon as he could “make a proper and satisfactory disposal of his motorcycle business, which now consumes all of his time and attention.”
According to the Texas Collection’s blog on the topic, Hall and friend John B. Fisher then reorganized Hall Cycle and Plating Company into the Hall Cyclecar Manufacturing Company, incorporating it with $25,000 in capital stock.
The Texas Collection holdings on Hall’s cyclecars features several photographs, showing an automobile about the size of the iconic Volkswagen Bug. The cyclecars reportedly cost $400 each.
Initially, Hall’s new venture was apparently so successful that on October 31, 1914, a picture of Hall was featured under the headline “Henry Ford of Waco” and accompanied by this somewhat breathless text:
“Lawrence Hall, who has grown to manhood here, will be known as the pioneer inventor and builder in Waco of motor cars. The car he built is his own invention. He gave diligent and intelligent attention to the work and much time and patience as well. We imagine there were some who may have thought he could be more profitably engaged. If so, that fact did not discourage him.”
The article alludes to a “well-equipped factory” in Waco “with a large force of men at work daily, turning out the Hall cars.” It also credited the “genius, the pluck, the success of a Waco boy.”
The most detailed description of a Hall Cyclecar appears in the December 24, 1913, edition of the Tribune-Herald, which pointed to the opening of Hall’s factory in 1914:
“The cyclecar is simply a small, economical member of the automobile family … the Hall Cyclecar is operated just like an automobile; it has a friction transmission and will run from four to fifty miles an hour and only uses one gallon of gasoline for every fifty miles run. The body is underslung and is of wood construction, absorbing road shocks and giving it easy riding possibilities. A deluxe 12 H.P. (horsepower) motor gives ample power, while the carburetor, magneto and other parts of the mechanism are of the latest and most approved make. The tread is 36-inches, thus straddling the ordinary Texas road … the machine only weights about 450 pounds.”
The new car was even featured in the 1914 edition of the national magazine, Automobile Topics.
The intrepid Hall made headlines in other ways as well when he was involved a thrilling motorcycle chase in June 1914. A newspaper article recounts the story of Jack Parkinson, a Dallas “youth” who was wanted for speeding in Mount Calm and theft of more than $50 in Dallas. Parkinson stole the Excelsior motorcycle belonging to George Hackley, superintendent of the National Newsboy’s Association in Dallas, then departed on an epic, high speed thrill-ride, closely followed by the Dallas police. As the chase neared Waco, Dallas officers called ahead to Hall — whom they immediately deputized. Hall and an employee leapt on their motorcycles and finally caught Parkinson between China Spring and Erath and brought him back to Waco — and justice.
But even with the initial success of his cyclecar, Hall must have sensed changes coming and pivoted yet again. On January 31, 1916, a large advertisement in a Waco newspaper trumpets the grand opening of “Hall & Fisher Tire Company at 417 Franklin Avenue, offering Firestone tires and free road service.”
And after appearing in dozens of mentions in newspapers in Waco and elsewhere for several years, the number of mentions of the Hall Cyclecar suddenly and rapidly decreases in mid-1916. In their place is a corresponding uptick in the number of classified advertisements offering used cyclecars, some for as low as $150.
After 1916, Hall’s name all but disappears from Waco newspapers. The Texas Collection blog on the topic says that Hall (and presumably Mrs. Hall) then moved to Los Angeles.
And other than the occasional Waco history article, including one in the October 30, 1949, issue in The Waco Tribune-Herald, that’s the last story on Lawrence Hall’s (briefly) famous cyclecar.
However, in early January 1977, Waco “antique car buff” Marion Finley announced plans to build a replica of the cyclecar and his phone rang nonstop with people offering to assist in the process or provide photographs. But Finley, who operated Brake and Clutch Supply Co. on South Eighth at the time, found more questions than answers. He said that the “sketchy” extant historical record and even sketchier memories of the callers couldn’t agree on much of anything. Were hundreds of cyclecars ever produced? Or only a handful? Where exactly was the “factory” located? And why did Hall leave Waco so abruptly?
Alas, in subsequent articles, Finley lamented that he never located a former employee of the Hall Cyclecar, nor was he ever able to locate an original cyclecar.
And that’s the story of Waco’s short-lived reign as an automobile manufacturing hub.
