Oldfield 1903 Empire City World Record

Thanks to Ken Parrotte, we have for our pleasure solid information in a pair of articles about Barney Oldfield's closed-course mile track record set in July 1903 at the Empire City horse track. He was later presented with a gold medal to commemorate his accomplishments during the race meet.
 
Oldfield first busted through the mile-a-minute track record at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in June of the same year. At Empire City he lowered the record to 55.2 seconds. While drivers were regularly reaching times below one minute on the measured mile, those efforts were accomplished over straight stretches such as hard sands near Daytona, not on closed circuits requiring turns.
 
The gold medal was sponsored by the Automobile Topics trade newspaper. You can find that information in an article that was published in the publication on September 5, 1903 and attached below. A second, more detailed article appeared in the New York Times on July 26th.
 
The New York Times piece provides a much more detailed accounting of the entire Empire City race meet which involved seven separate events. Oldfield actually was awarded the medal for winning a match race with Frank La Roche in his Darracq racer.
 
There were numerous important European race cars on hand, including examples from Mercedes and Panhard. Among the Americans was a Lou Mooers Peerless driven by Charles Wridgeway. Also over 300 touring cars were driven to the track for the meet. In those days, that was a spectacle in itself.