Month: July 2024

The best-known Fuller automobile is likely the one made in Michigan, but there was also a Fuller made in Nebraska, and it was a beauty with gleaming brass accents. The Nebraska Fuller was manufactured in the tiny town of Angus, Nebraska, by a homegrown mechanical genius, and it likely would have continued to thrive were it not for shareholder disagreements.

The man with the mechanical aptitude was Charles Fuller, and he had gathered experience in a blacksmithing and buggy shop where he completed an early version of a car, reportedly the first one in the state. This experience combined with stints working for the St. Louis and Lambert Car Companies to ignite a desire to start his own car company. In 1906, the business was incorporated with capitalization of $50,000 in his hometown of Angus, which had a population of around 500 at that time. A new $20,000 factory was constructed, and manufacturing commenced in February of 1907 with a capability of building 13 cars at one time. Two other Fuller Brothers (Clarence and Lon) and their father, a preacher and a blacksmith who was also named Charles, were also involved in the business.

The company hired around 40 employees to build the cars that, unlike the Model T, were available in a variety of colors. In an interview conducted in 1965, a former employee said that the paint shop would put on 16-18 coats of quality paint, and that he remembered delivering cars in red, gray, white, green, blue, and black. The cars were powered by the Indiana-made Rutenber engines that were used in many early automobiles including the Auburn.

The Fuller Touring Car was powered by a 4-cylinder 35-40hp Rutenber motor. Other models available included a Gentleman’s Roadster, a Runabout, and a heavier Touring Car with a 60hp 6-cylinder engine. The company pioneered many ideas, including the use of a steel shaft instead of a chain drive to transmit power from the engine to the rear wheels. This 1908 advertisement is a most detailed explanation of the mechanics of the automobile:

One 1907 paper reported that Charles Fuller had taken one of his new automobiles to the nearby town of Edgar one day when he received a phone message that he was needed back in Angus before the train left the station there. The train was due to leave in 15 minutes, and Fuller made it in 12. Today, Google says the trip will still take 10 minutes.

A common marketing ploy in the early 1900s was to put a car on a giant teeter totter. The Fuller took its turn on such a contraption at a 1909 Odd Fellows picnic.

The car was manufactured until 1910, its demise the result of disagreements over the future of the company. The success of the venture had resulted in a lot of interest from outside parties; newspapers reported that at least four other towns were trying to induce the company to move operations there. Then a group of Omaha businessmen offered to purchase the company after seeing an exhibition at the Nuckolls County Fairgrounds in which the Fuller completed two half-mile laps in 60 seconds. Charles Fuller wanted to sell, but the other shareholders refused. Charles left the business, and there was no business without Charles Fuller. A 1913 newspaper story appeared when the Angus Automobile Company was sold to a couple of men from Brewster. It confirmed that company control had been secured by a group of Nelson businessmen at some point and moved to Nelson, but that it had been operating as a general repair and garage business as cars had not been manufactured for several years.

Sources differ on the actual number of Fullers built, but generally agree there were hundreds completed. Regardless of the number built, the Fuller might have completely disappeared from this earth were it not for the fact that a niece of the Fullers married a California car guy with Nebraska roots by the name of Ray Ringer.  A 1955 newspaper story described Ringer as someone who collected parts of old car models and assembled them as a hobby, and the story was written because the Ringers were traveling to Lexington, Nebraska, to see the last known surviving Fuller, a 1908 model. There is no report of what they actually found in Lexington, but Ringer was able to scrounge enough parts to put together this Fuller which is now on display at the Nuckolls County Historical Society & Museum in Superior, Nebraska.

This gorgeous Touring Car has a red leather interior, cream colored paint, and beautiful brass accents. It is powered by the 4-cylinder/40-hp Rutenber motor. A plate mounted on the rear of the car identifies it as a Fuller, manufactured by the Angus Automobile Company. There is an emblem on the radiator, but it isn’t likely original.

As for the Fuller brothers, Clarence moved to Hastings and opened a car dealership with his son, Homer. He died in 1943 and Homer continued in the business, building these new quarters for a Buick dealership in 1950.

Charles moved to California and continued to invent. He made the papers in the 1930s for inventing a machine to extract gold by the placer method using air instead of water. It was reported that the giant machines were not for sale but were leased out for a flat rate plus a percentage of the profits. Manufactured in Los Angeles, the machines were 47 feet long, 18 feet wide and weighed 33 tons. According to a 1971 article written by his daughter in The Horseless Carriage Gazette, Charles Fuller died at his drafting table in 1940.

Homer Fuller once recalled the day his father drove one of the new Fullers by a church just as the service was over. The unusual site of an automobile sent horses and buggies in every direction, and Homer said, “They were going to hang my father, sue him, and everything else.” The original site of the factory in Angus is now a cornfield. There is little left of the now-unincorporated town, just a few streets, a handful of houses, and the memories of the fine automobiles that were once built there.

Note : The following names were mentioned in old newspaper stories in connection with the Angus Automobile Company.

Nelson Businessmen: C. R. Imler, M.S. Storer, D.L. Davies, L.W. Knapp, William A. Voigt, S.A. Lapp, V.A. Thomas, W.W. Hawley, Proctor Peebler

Incorporators: Charles E Fuller, Charles M Fuller, D.C. Mills, L. Moss, H.G. Eggers, J.L. Carlon, E.C. Moore, J.W. Ewing

Employees: Gilbert Osborne, Mr. Davis, G.W. Taylor, C.T. Moss

Sources:

Advertisement. District IOOF Picnic. The Edgar Sun, 20 Aug 1909, p. 5.

Advertisement. Fuller Motor Car. The Deshler Rustler, 14 Feb 1908, p. 12.

Advertisement. “The Angus Automobile Company.” The Lincoln Journal Star, 19 Feb 1908, p. 5.

Advertisement. Western Motor Sales. The Hastings Daily Tribune, 12 May 1950, p. 7.

Advertisement. W. J. Burt Motor Car Company. The Los Angeles Times, 3 Sept 1911, p. VII-4.

“Angus Auto Factory Sold.” The Edgar Post, 11 Mar 1913, p. 1.

“Automobile News.” Omaha Daily Bee, 28 Jul 1907, p. 3.

“Automobile Show Attracts.” The Nebraska State Journal, 27 Feb 1908, p. 3.

Bixby, Max. “When Angus Was a Thriving Town and Automobiles Were Manufactured There.” The Superior Express, 1 Apr 1965, p. 2-1.

“Chance For New Factory.” The Beatrice Daily Express, 8 Apr 1908, p. 1.

“Charles M. Fuller Inventor of Giant Placer Mining Machine.” The Hastings Daily Tribune, 26 Jul 1932, p. 8.

“District I. O. O. F. Picnic.” The Edgar Post, 20 Aug 1909, p. 1.

“From Our Exchanges.” Nuckolls County Herald, 11 Jul 1907, p. 10.

“Fuller Cars Manufactured at Angus Fifty Years Ago.” The Oak Leaf, 23 Sept 1967, p. 2.

“Fuller Car Manufactured in Angus Listed in Auto History.” The Hastings Daily Tribune, 21 Nov 1951, p. 5.

“Growth of the Automobile in Popularity and General Utility in Omaha.” Omaha Daily Bee, 22 Mar 1908, p. 3.

“Homer Fuller Dies Sunday.” The Hastings Daily Tribune,10 Jul 1961, p. 9.

“Local Lore.” Nuckolls County Herald, 11 Aug 1911, p. 5.

“Rather Independent.” The Superior Journal, 25 Apr 1907, p. 4.

“Tells of Recent Trip.” The Edgar Sun, 20 Oct 1955, p. 4.