Book Chapter 4

ART HISTORY 101

Tregoning & Company is one of the foremost names in Cleveland’s fine arts community. This outstanding gallery specializes in art appraisal and restoration. Tregonings’s services are used by a wide variety of clients, from a virtual list of Cleveland’s who’s who to the less well known as well as the Cleveland Museum of Art.

In business since 1982 and tucked away at 1300 West 78th Street, in Lakewood, you wouldn’t even know it was there unless you were looking for it. However, Tregoning maintains and operates one of the finest galleries of privately owned art on either the east or west side of Cleveland, specializing in works by both European and American artists from the 17th century old masters thru the late 20th centuries.

In addition to appraisals and restorations, Tregoning & Company offers expert services in historical frame design and archival frame installation of all types of fragile works of art. Their expertise extends to sculpture, textiles, ceramics and decorative objects as well as art on paper and canvas.

There facilities are classic yet elegant. The building itself is more than one hundred years old and is of classic red brick construction. At the original entrance to the building is a much trodden, weathered sandstone step, giving a clue to the buildings true age. Stepping into lobby, one is greeted by finished hard wood floors and wooden rafters overhead, bolted together with iron plates typical of construction in that era. For all intensive purposes it likes an old time factory, a beautifully restored factory. And, you would one hundred percent correct. At one time it was a factory. One deeply entrenched in Cleveland’s history, a history much different than the purpose for which it now serves. The building that now houses one of the most amazing collections of art in the city was once home of the Baker Electric Car Company.

At the turn of the twentieth century there were over a 1,000 small automobile manufacturer’s in the United States. At one time or another, several automobile manufacturers have called Cleveland home. Among these was White, also famous for sewing machines and trucks, Winton, Peerless, and F.B Stearns. All of these companies produced traditional gasoline powered transportation. One manufacturer choose to stray from the beaten path and produce a most unusual, some said one of the most revolutionary automobiles of their time. These were the electric vehicles produced by Walter C. Baker and the company that bore his name.

Baker, who lived in Lakewood for forty six years, was an engineer and inventor born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire. When he was just three years old his parents relocated to Cleveland. His father, George W. Baker, an industrialist in his own right, helped to found the White Sewing Machine and Cleveland Machine Screw, companies that also have deep roots in Cleveland history.

Walter graduated from the Case School of Applied Science in 1891. Baker had already founded the American Ball Bearing Company when he, along with his partner and friend, F. Phillip Dean, built their first electric car in 1897. In the year that followed, the pair laid the foundation of what was to become the Baker Electric Car Company.

The autos produced by Baker were innovative for several reasons. Not only was the twelve volt, battery powered electric propulsion system state of the art for its day, they were unique for their left hand, tiller steering system.

Within a year of opening its doors for business, Baker’s production topped four hundred units, each selling for about $850.00. It is reported that one of the first was sold to Thomas Edison, his very first car. The Baker Company boosted that their car was so simple to drive that “even a woman could operate it.” The statement sounds terribly sexist today but in those days most cars with gasoline engines had to be started with a crank which often kicked back when the engine started, sometimes breaking the arm of the person trying to start it.

In 1904, the production line up consisted of two models, the Runabout and the Stanhope. Both were two seaters. Power was supplied by a centrally located twelve volt electric motor with a three speed transmission. In 1907 a line of electric trucks was added to the product mix.

In 1900, electric car production accounted for thirty six per cent of the nations total automobile output. The Baker Company produced most of them. And by 1907 Baker was producing seventeen different models ranging from the old Stanhope, the smallest, to the Extension Front Brougham, priced at over $4,000. Pretty pricey for 1907. Capacity of the truck was increased to five tons. Baker went so far as to produce a race car called the Torpedo. Designed to be a land speed racer, it was the first car to have seat belts. Reports differ, but the Torpedo was reputed to be capable of speeds from seventy nine to one hundred twenty miles per hour.

In 1913, sales leadership in the marketplace was taken over by Detroit Electric and in 1914 Baker merged with Rauch & Long, another Cleveland auto manufacturer. The company changed it name to Baker, Ruasch & Long.

Electric cars also have there place in literature. Well, at least in comic books. In one issue, Donald Duck’s grandmother is depicted driving what appears to be driving either a Baker or a Rauch & Long.

Eventually, electric cars lost out to their gasoline counterparts. It seems that electric automobile were better suited to city street rather than the harsh, bumpy county roads that made up most of the nations highway system in the early part of the twentieth century. In addition, They were not all that powerful and the batteries were heavy and of very limited life. Range for a single charge was about eighty miles. Charging facilities, unlike gasoline stations, were expensive to build and not readily available outside of metropolitan areas.

The last Baker was produced in 1916. In 1919 Walter Baker joined the Peerless Motor Company. Baker’s car company evolved into the Baker Materials Handling Company which closed it’s doors in1989. Thus the Baker Electric Car Company passed into history.

Today Baker’s are highly prized by collectors. Comedian, Jay Leno has a collection that contains at least one Baker. Locally, the Crawford Auto/Aviation Museum on University Circle has a fine example of a 1904 Newport Runabout.

The irony in all of this is that in this age of ever increasing prices for gas and oil, interest in electric powered vehicle has been rekindled. Modern advances in both automotive and battery technology have made electric autos feasible as well as practical again. What goes around comes around as they say. What was once the past may become the future thanks to pioneers like Walter C. Baker and his dream.

From automobile factory to art gallery. Quite a change. Yet each in its own way, an art form.

Baker built it, Tregoning & Company has preserved it. The Baker Electric Car Factory, another piece of Cleveland’s, and Lakewood’s unknown history.