Clip of the Day

With the passion of youth, $68 and two sets of smithy tools, they established H & C Studebaker on February 16, 1852.  The first day of business grossed 25 cents for shoeing a horse.  A few weeks later they received their first wagon order from a Mr. Earl.  The wagon was constructed and sold for $175.  Business was slow though and they did whatever they could to make ends meet.  The end of the first year would bring just one more wagon order5.  At this time the third son, John Mohler, had come of age.  He, like his brothers, had learned smithing and wagon making but his immediate desires lay west in the gold fields of California.  When a wagon train passed through South Bend early in 1853, he proposed an arrangement wherein he would give them a new wagon in exchange for passage and board.  It was agreed and his brothers helped him build the wagon in ten days.

He became a star on the radio recycling his newspaper pieces. From 1930 to 1935, his radio show on Sunday nights The Gulf Headliners, ranked among the top radio programs in the country. He rambled from one subject to another and often lost track of the half-hour time limit. To correct this, he brought in a wind-up alarm clock to alert him to when to begin wrapping up his comments. Later his show was announced as "Will Rogers and his famous Alarm Clock."