Cycling Claremont: Ye Olde Claremont Cyclery

I can't shake the feeling that I have seen this one before, somewhere, but am not sure where.


The Claremont Cyclery was located as 223 W. First Street, which seems to place it, approximately, at what is now a parking lot next to Jax Cyclery. This particular photo was taken in 1903 (photographer unknown) and shows the shop patriotically decorated for the visit of President Theodore Roosevelt. I don't know what Claremont's population was in 1903, but in 1930 it was only 2700. That a town of that size could boast a shop dedicated exclusively to the bicycle suggests that a vibrant cycling community has existed here for quite some time.

The image is another in the University of California's Calisphere system. The original, a 5 x 7 glass plate negative, is from the Boynton Collection of Early Claremont at the Honnold Library, Claremont Colleges. 

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