Fans On Rail, in Cars and on Horseback!

The attachment below contains an article which orginally appeared in the May 31, 1910 Indianapolis Star. The article ran in support of the May 1910 race meet at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The May 1910 race meet weekend included "national championships," a newly-announced distinction by the American Automobile Association (AAA) for select race meets. Car manufacturers were keen to make a great showing. Check out other articles that provide additional summaries on the results of the races staged May 27 and May 28 elsewhere on First Super Speedway.
 
Also, check out these other relevant articles:

• C.E. Shuart's report focusing on the Wheeler-Schebler Trophy.
• H.G. Deupree's report on record-breaking speed.
• May 28 Weather Report.

 
The article is an entertaining snapshot to a way of life now lost to the ages. Described in a very upbeat tone is the process various people used to reach the new Brickyard race track and return home on Memorial Day, 1910. The weather of the day is also reported as delightful, "the best on a Decoration Day in a great many years...". The article also indicates that the Speedway and its events were a "magnet" for citizens in communities around the Hoosier state.
 
"They came by steam road, by interurban and by automobile. The sidewalks of the downtown streets at the noon hour were a dense mass of struggling and pushing pedestrians, and the thoroughfares were filled with machines of all sizes, models and hues. Motorists with many miles of travel behind them whizzed and snorted into the city in their dusty cars, and Indianapolis owners of automobiles were abroad on the streets in full force. Probably so many visiting machines never were in the city before at one time."
 
For those of you who dig on numbers, the article reports that more than 50,000 people passed through the gates of the iconic Union Station on Memorial Day, race day. "About 19,000" tickets to the Speedway were sold by the Big Four railroads. Officials at Union Station spoke in positive, albeit vague, terms when they estimated that the day's throng of travelers was unprecedented.
 
On the interurban rail side officials there estimated that 36,000 people passed through the gates at the Traction Terminal Station. The Ben-Hur line reported that they sold about 2,000 tickets to the Speedway even though they ran no special trips to the track. This fact taken in isolation may not sound all that impressive today, but in the context of the times that statistic may have been more meaningful. Officals of the Traction Terminal Station reported that they believed the only days of the year that surpassed the traffic of the previous day were Thursdays of State Fair week and the shopping days leading up to Christmas.